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JUN 9 im 


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JUN 21 law.^B 


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WHERE 



THE SMILE COMES IN. 


3 H 


BY 


BARNES MAGOFFIN. 




6*. 


NKW YORK: 

COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY 

W. Dillingham Co Publishers . 

MDCCCXCVIII. 

[^// rights reserved .] 


2nd CCPV 

T89G, 



2 . 










THESE SKETCHES ARE DEDICATED AS A PERSONAL 


REGARD TO 

GEORGE G. McCLURE 

PAYMASTER’S DEPARTMENT 


U. S. ARMY, 




CONTENTS. 


Page 


“ His Favorite Novelist and His Best Book ” . 9 

Mr. Carker and the Gypsy Queen . . .22 

How Mr. Carker Paid His Debts . . .31 

The Hard Lines that Fell to a Swell . 44 

Mr. Carker as Best Man . . . -59 

Confession of a Photographic Crank . . 69 

Did He Get Her Negative ? . . . .8 7 

A Politician’s Bank 101 

Mrs. Van Dyke Brown 114 

Rev. Dr. Ebony’s Jubilee Discourse . .124 


[ 5 ] 


6 


Contents . 


Page 

First Night in a New Home . . . . 135 

The Gentleman from the Far West on Fe- 
male Education 144 

Colonel Beverly’s Will . . . . . 154 


PREFACE. 


To the Bank Clerks of Greater New York. 

Gentlemen -—When “ No. 66” became past 
history, the writer devoted part of his involuntary 
vacation to the preparation of the sketches in this 
little volume. 

A few of these have appeared heretofore in the 
columns of an influential journal beyond the Hud- 
son, and were well received. The writer may, 
perhaps, without egotism, quote some kind and 
complimentary expressions of Editor John J. Leidy 
(now of the Newark Daily Advertiser ) in regard to 
these sketches. 

In a personal letter Mr. Leidy says : “ As editor 
of the Newark Sunday Call for thirteen years, I 
received and approved your weekly sketches, and 

[ 7 ] 


8 Prefact. 

am therefore qualified to speak of their merits. 
They are distinguished by an originality of con- 
ception, a humor and satire, and a general interest 
that gave them every charm for the reader. And 
charm they did, for during a period of years they 
were a feature of The Call, and contributed not a 
little to its success as a newspaper.” 

Having served the “ Old Third ” under its first 
and also under its last President, the writer maybe 
pardoned for feeling a sort of Deanship in the 
great Bank Clerk fraternity. And he is fain to be- 
lieve the rank and file of that grand army will ac- 
cord his little Book the honor of being placed in 
the top layer of their traveling bags when the an- 
nual furlough comes and they speed away to more 
exhilarating sport than “ Hunting for Differences.” 

Yours fraternally, 

Barnes Magoffin. 


WHERE THE SMILE COMES IN. 


“ HIS FAVORITE NOVELISTS AND HIS BEST BOOK.” 

Daniel was his name, and he was connected with 
the Press. The young gentleman he succeeded 
had been removed from his position, owing to mix- 
ing with his daily duty an absorbing passion for 
the tactics of the noble American game, baseball. 

On days when much moisture pervaded the sur- 
rounding atmosphere, and evening newspaper edi- 
tions were reeking, the temptation to this sporty 
carrier to roll each copy into solid globes, and de- 
liver them upon his customer’s premises with a 
bang, was just too fascinating to be resisted. The 
consequence was that several middle-aged gentle- 

19 ] 


to Where the Smile Comes In. 

men narrowly endangered their necks in scaling 
steep piazza roofs, or by fishing in gutters from 
the giddy heights of scuttle-holes for the news- 
paper that should have been soberly escorted 
to their front doorsteps. Complaining letters to 
the publishing office arrived in such numbers that 
notice had to be taken of their contents, and the 
evil quickly remedied. Thus the more sedate- 
looking Daniel appeared very close upon the re- 
treating heels of the bounced base-ball fiend of 
immature years. 

The new carrier, after a month’s trial, showed 
himself, in the proper delivery of his papers, 
at least, to be more satisfactory than his pre- 
decessor, and was thought to be quite worthy of a 
fair holiday tip. He was informed through the 
housemaid, that after finishing his evening task he 
was expected to give a few spare moments to the 
gentleman of the house in the retirement of his 
library. 

Daniel was a very conspicuous boy, owing en- 
tirely to his hair. That the arrangement of his 


Where the Smile Comes In. 1 1 

auburn locks was to him something to be strongly 
accented, seemed proclaimed by the smallness of 
his flat cap, and the perch- 
ing of it on the extreme 
rear of his skull. How he 
kept this dot of a hat in 
place, puzzled the man of 
the house. Giving the rid- 
dle up in despair, it was 
passed to the lady of the 
house. She suggested, wo- 
man-like, hairpins. Now, the 
real answer came later, and 
proved to be hair unguent, 
of a very sticky order. Arrayed in other 
respects as a smarter sort of junior tramp, 
the grooming of Daniel’s hair was far in advance 
of his working uniform. In cut, it was very sug- 
gestive of the coiffure of Mr. Corbett (of course, 
before getting down to the business of the ring). 

It was supposed, before Daniel’s history was 
rightly read, that the influence of polite society, as 



I 2 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


represented by football aristocracy, had got 
through with the outside of his head and there 
rested from its severe labor. Later on will be 
hinted the secret of Daniel’s close affection for this 
gladiatorial cut he had adopted. 

Prompt to the selected hour, Daniel was in the 
library of the man of the house. In the interview 
that followed, Daniel asserted that his age was ten. 
He had been supposed to be, at least, twelve. His 
life since his widowed mother’s death, he said, had 
been spent upon the streets, mostly. He could 
read far better than he could write. His first ac- 
quaintance with literature, was the mastering for 
his mother, a patent medicine almanac from the 
corner drug-store free library. 

“You see, Boss, mother was by profess’en a 
taker in of washen’, and she did a fair trade ’fore 
them Chinamen cum on our street wid their blue 
blouses and red curtins, and they jes’ knocked ther 
stuffin’ out of mother’s livin’! Wid a winter’s spell 
at night school, I was able to keep mother posted 
from that ere al’mack as to clo’s-dryin’ weather. 


Where the Smile Co?nes In, 13 

When, on account of them Chinamen, mother’s 
earnin’s got short, we had hard lines of it, Boss, till 
I was big enough to tackle boot shinin’ an’ evenin’ 
papers. An’ Boss, jes’ when I was gittin’ on the 
shure road to earnin’ what would be of more help 
to her, mammy died ; wore out before her time, 
Boss, all along of them yellah-skin, dried-up old 
washermen. Them boardin’ house swells, with 
their two collars an’ one shirt a week to wash, have 
all gone back on ther ’spectable ’Merican widder- 
lady in reduced circumstances, that form’ly had all 
their trade. That ain’t square ’Merican treatment, 
is it, Boss ? Soon after her funeral, ther werry first 
thing I did was to rush into a barber shop where 
ther Dago boy who does ther customers’ boot 
polishin’ was a pardner of mine. 

“ You see, Boss, mother took me to a cheap 
theatre one night and we saw a play in which there 
was a sickly little cuss in black velvet, big white 
frill collar, red sash like a drum-major’s, and long 
curls — yes, curls, Boss, long and many as gals 
wear. From that night, Boss, poor mammy was 


14 Where the Smile Comes In. 

dead stuck on that stage kid’s . curls, and she says 
to me : * Danny, I kin get you no black welvet 
knick’bockers, but ther good Lord gives to poor 
folkses kids as much hair as they want, and for 
nuthenV I tell you, Boss, ther boys in our alley 
they guyed me fearful after mother got dead 
stuck on haven’ my hair kep’ in ther little Lord 
Fontleroy style. I jes’ hope poor mother ain’t 
been told by any dead female neighbor of hern 
how I, ther werry moment her breath was out of 
her body, sprinted for that Dago barber’s shop, 
and said good-by to my long ringlets. Mother 
was good to me, Boss, but somehow she never 
could ketch on to how I did suffer from them 
ringlets. But you’ve got a pile of books here, 
Boss?” and Daniel, with a husky voice, turned his 
back and seemed so bent on leading his talk in 
some other direction than further gossip over his 
dead mother’s eccentricities as to the arrangement 
of his hair, that he was humored at once in his 
examination of my book-shelves. 

“ Boss, hain’t you got ’mong them many books, 


Where the Smile Comes In. 15 

‘ Hawkcye Sammy, the Boy Trapper Ranger?’ 
No ! nor ‘ Glass Eye, ther Dead Shot nor ‘ Death 
Face, ther Body Snatcher nor ‘ Cloven Hoof, ther 
Devil Sprinter,’ either? Well, that does git me! 
If I was on a still hunt like you, Boss, jes’ for all 
ther books I likes, my shoppen’ would be all done 
at one establishment I knows of. Yes, sir, it’s a 
bookseller’s shop, but none of ther books cost 
more than a nickel. Of them works I mentioned, 
my favorite am * Hawkeye Sammy.’ I was a mere 
kid, Boss, when Sammy and I got ’quainted. But 
I read it now with jes' as much pleasure as the 
first time, though with more knowledge, I hope. 
Well, Boss, thar’s a story of me attached to ther 
first readen of dear ole Sammy, which if you wish 
I will give you straight. I was so ’fected by it 
that nuthen’ would satisfy me but of seein’ quickly 
with me own eyes live Injuns; a real grizzly ; and 
a true trapper’s cabin. 

“ With two doughnuts for rations, a pea shooter 
for killen’ Injuns, an’ a shinny-stick for clubben’ 
bears, I started one fine morncn’ for ther land of 


1 6 Where the Smile Comes In . 

ther Setten’ Sun. I got as far as ther next big 
town from here when a cop hails me. I tells him 
what was on my mind. He said I would have to 
go with him first, an’ ask an old gent he knew for 
permission. The old gent the cop told me of was 
ther police judge. He made the cop stand me on 
a table and this is what the judge give me, word 
for word : ‘ This officer tells me, youngster, that 
he found this book in your possession (and he 
shows up ‘ Hawkeye Sammy, ther Boy Trapper 
Ranger.’) ‘Well,’ says ther judge, ‘keep on 
readen’ books like this an’ you may be ’fected like 
that bad boy, Jesse Pomeroy ; an’ he tells me who 
Jes was and about ther murder he committed. 

‘ If I had ther man here,’ says ther judge, ‘what 
rote your fav’rite novel he’d get his deserts at this 
shop, heapen’, bilen’ over. He, it was, my boy, 
who ’duced you to run this long ways from your 
dear mammy. Yes, I’d rather inflict ther law on 
that man than on you, you little three-foot high 
Injun scalper. Let me see what I kin do to cure 
you from ever thinken’ agin of sieh nonsense as 


/ V here the Smile Comes hi. 1 7 

you were bent on.’ Then he turns to ther cop, 
an’ says : ‘ Officer, you say he carried conceal’d 
weepons ? Let me see them. Ha ! what is this ? 
an’ it’s loaded, too ! Officer, have the deadly pea 
removed from this murderous gun ; be extremely 
careful, for a dead policeman is worth much more 
than a dead Injun. An’ a club besides! Why 
his case is gittin’ worse and worse! You have 
made a very important arrest, officer, and I must 
congratulate you. I hope that ther reserves have 
not gone out yet ; hold on to them. If I have to 
send this dangerous character up for sixty or sev- 
enty years, he may try to strangle me as soon as 
sentence is pronounced.’ 

“ Here the old judge looked sharply at me 
through his specs, expecten’ to see me in tears an 
tremblen’all over. Now, mind you, Boss, never a 
tear did I shed. Oh ! I was a game little tough in 
those days, Boss. Why ! it’s almost two years 
ago — Well, sir, when the old judge saw that all 
ther awful things he could do with me didn’t scare 
me a bit, then he says to ther peeler who had 


1 8 Where the Smile Conies In. 

‘pinched’ me: ‘Tell ther matron to hire some 
kind woman. Let her git this poor petted kid a 
nice warm supper, then take him by rail to his 
mother’s home ; all at my expense, officer. An’ 
stay, here’s a note for ther poor lady to read. 
Then he turns to me and says, in quite a different 
voice, Boss, from what he used in his thunder 
over what the law might have given me : ‘ Sonny, 
have you no thought of your poor mammy who is 
now, I am sure, hunting up and down the dark 
streets of your city, for her little stray lamb ? For 
you must have a very loving mother, my lad, to be 
wearen’ sich keerfully curled golden ringlets?’ 

“ Well, Boss, mother was indeed goen’ on jes as 
ther kind old judge expected. Nor have I any 
grudge agin ther old man that his note to mother 
said : ‘ Never mind ther expense I’ve been to in 
returning your wanderer by safe hands. But it is 
my advice to you, Madam, that ther best way to 
get this crazy Injun business out of him is to at 
once put some of your elbow-grease into ther 
\yorken’ of a birch-rod. you will know, without 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


19 


suggestion from me, where ther rod should be ad- 
ministered an’ ther extent of ther dose.’ 

“ Wow ! wow! Boss, how a shingle in mother’s 
hand did git in its fine work, in followin’ ther old 
judge’s advice ! 

“ Did ther good advice and ther warm home 
remedy cure me, you ask, of half-dime novel read- 
in’? Well, Boss, I did try for a long spell to shut 
down on dear old Sammy, ther Boy Trapper an’ 
his companion books. By mother’s advice, ther 
good Sup. up to ther Mission Sunday-school tried 
on me some of his gray-colored cotton-covered re- 
ligious readin’ matter. Ther pictures were good, 
but they lacked painten’ ; ther fust chapter or so 
of readin’ promised well, but all of a sudden, with- 
out warnen’, Boss, a sermon was sprung on yer. 
That style of swindlen’ readers of them books, 
Boss, is like sugar-coaten’ doctor’s stuff. I takes 
back ther nex’ Sunday ther keerfully-covered book 
the Sup. selected for me, and says I to ther young 
man who was runnen’ ther libr’ry : 

“ ‘ Ain’t there any scalpen’ stories in your big 


20 


Where the Smile Comes In . 


stock of books ? Cause,’ says I, ‘ I always like to 
take Injun in mine.’ 

“ He shook his head and kinder seemed to be 
laughen’ at my question. 

“ ‘ Ther gentleman,’ says I, ‘ who used to furnish 
me with readin’ matter afore I cum to know your 
select Sunday-school collection, had Injuns in most 
of his. Yes, sir, and to save his half-dime volumes 
from their soilen’, consequent of too much inspec- 
tion before buyen’, this old gent reads ’em all him- 
self first, then puts in pencil on ther tops of ther 
outer cover jes’ how many Injuns is killed in its 
inside. That’s ther right way to run a library, I’m 
thinken,’ says I to ther young gent. 

“ ‘ That’s a great scheme,’ says he, ‘ I never 
thought of that before. What a ’commodaten’ 
bookseller he is.’ 

“ Believe me, Boss, of all them numerous an’ 
nicely covered books up to the Sunday Mission, 
not one of ’em told of any kind of fight, at least, 
worth mentionen’. Yes, sur, they all wanted more 
snap to ’em. In a book I like, ther crack of ther 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


21 


rifle ought to be heared from kiver to kiver ; 
hoisten’ scalps done on every chapter ; and at ther 
end should cum dancen’ in, lots of beautiful girls 
wrapped in ‘Merican flags, to lead out for partners 
all ther soldiers at a frontier fort, to dance upon 
ther rollen’ flower-strewed prairies ! 

“ Say, Boss, I’ll fetch up a new fresh copy to- 
morrow, of dear old ‘ Sammy, ther Boy Trapper,’ 
an’ yous ken jes’ see for yourself what a bully 
book it be.” 

As Daniel was saying good-bye, he was pre- 
ented with a well-thumbed copy of “ Leather 
Stocking.” 

“As you wish, Boss, I’ll read it and compare it 
with ‘ Sammy, ther Boy Trapper,’ but I have my 
doubts, Boss, that there’s any Cooper in ther 
Union that in slingin’ ink in Injun stories kin do it 
as well as ther lit’rary chap who penned dear old 
‘ Sammy, ther Boy Trapper,’ though I don’t know 
his name, Boss, yet he’s a corker at his biz, an’ 
every one of us evenin’-news hustlers says we can 
depen’ on him every time, an’ have no fears of get- 
ten’ left.” 


22 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


MR. CARKER AND THE GYPSY' QUEEN. 

Mr. Carker was a society swell in winter, an 
amateur boatman in summer. He was a popular 
leader of the German and a dapper coxswain to his 
crew. His set divided his title into Coxey and 
Poney, and at his election, Commodore Sawedoff. 

Poney Carker came into the smoker of his club 
one night, much depressed over the close shearing 
he had got when in the hands of more than one 
fair shepherdess, for at the time Mr. Carker’s family 
chapel was holding its annual Parish Fair. The 
dapper coxswain was not long before he aired his 
oppressing troubles. 

“ Some of you millionaires will please stand for 
a cigar, for blest if I have in my clothes more than 
the price of a trolley-ride home. Thanks. How 
I happened to get cleaned out so thoroughly, is all 
owing to a tip given by the Sunday-school Sup., in 


Where the Smile Comes In. 23 

the ticket-office outside, to the girls inside who are 
running our Church Fair. I was so fresh as to 
flourish a new twenty-dollar bill under the nose of 
that sharp ticket-taker, whereas, a ten cent stamp 
might have got me by without any giving away of 
the contents of my pocket-book. I suppose, by 
telephone, he gave the women-folks inside the 
hall to understand that a jay, with money to burn, 
demanded their immediate attention, and I got it 
hot from the bat. Every time I took out my 
pocket-book to pay for a trifle, a shepherdess would 
take a peep and pass the news on that, ‘ There’s a 
few dollars left yet, girls ; go for them your pret- 
tiest.’ It wasn’t very long before I says to myself, 
‘ Samuel, go slow with what’s left in the locker or 
you’ll be strapped before the supper room hoves 
in sight.’ After much dodging, on economical 
motives, the fair ones with raffle chances, and the 
hash-counter lights were just in sight, who should 
I bump against but that close-fisted old mariner, 
Wiggy Wiggins. ‘ To avoid “ hold ups,” Coxey,’ 
says Wiggy, ‘ let’s paddle in company.’ 


24 Where the Smile Comes In. 

“ ‘ If there’s any sport to be had cheap, Wiggy,* 
says I, 4 I can only tackle that sort, for I haven’t 
much left above the price of a church stew.’ 

“ ‘ It costs but a quarter to get a “ hand tickler,” 
Coxey ; shall we sample one ?’ 

“ 4 Let’s scoop it in, Wiggy,’ says I, for I didn’t 
like to show Wiggy that I was in total ignorance 
of what sort of sport his ‘hand ticklers ’ might be. 
It was Wiggy’s name, boys, for the magic art of 
the Fair’s Fortune Teller. The Gyp., we found, 
was carrying on a flourishing trade at her tent, and 
much time it took us to get inside ; as her canvas 
shop was small, only one customer at a time could 
be waited on. Well, I was landed there finally. 
The Gyp. was indeed a daisy, and quite a picnic it 
was to have your paw held for the three or four 
minutes it took to read the lines of fortune on 
your palm. Her hands were a little large, but she 
was quite tall and that accounts for it. But her 
voice ! Yum ! yum ! It was indeed sweet music, 
in a double sense, to hear her warble that I was to 
be a millionaire within a week, at the very farthest. 


Where the Smile Covies In. 25 

“ My reduced twenty gave me less sad regrets 
when I got that tip. When I came out, ‘ Wiggy, ’ 4 I 
says, ‘ go in, it’s your turn now.’ But Wiggy put 
on a long face and says, ‘ I’m feared to do it, 
Coxey, I’m awful superstitious, an’ if she gives me 
bad luck, I’d not sleep a wink to-night. No, Poney, 
I’ll not run the chance. But, tell me, did you sus- 
pect who this lovely queen is ?’ 

“ ‘ Wiggy,’ says I, ‘ I was so paralyzed by her 
good looks and the hearty grip she gave my flipper, 
that I quite forgot to question myself as to 
where I had heard that voice of hers, yet it seems 
familiar. Remember, her face is so well stained, 
that even if I had not lost my head, I’d still be un- 
able to solve your conundrum.’ 

“As Wiggy and I were puzzling over who she 
could be, I was knocked silly at beholding the col- 
ored sexton of our church enter the lovely queen’s 
apartment. 

“ ‘ How quick he’ll get fired,’ said I. 

“ ‘ Don’t know about that,’ says Wiggy. 1 The 
young women of our church can be calculated 


26 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


upon to do most anything to help wipe out its 
heavy mortgage.’ 

‘ But to tell a colored gentleman’s fortune! 
They would certainly draw the line at that,’ I in- 
dignantly fired back, 

“ 1 Perhaps you are right, Coxey. See, here are 
a couple of holes in the old table-cloth that the 
parson’s wife has loaned for the back of the gypsy’s 
tent. Let’s watch the fun.’ So Wiggy and I took 
it all in. I was just raving mad, boys, at seein’ the 
sexton get served in a style just as nice as I had 
been. As for Wiggy, it didn’t appear to disgust 
him in the least. He even smiled and says, ‘ I’m 
going to interview the sex., and hear what sort of 
a fortune was doled out to him.’ 

“ When Obe —that’s the sex.’s name — comes 
out, Wiggy says, ‘ Obe, what did the handsome 
gypsy give you in the fortune line ?’ 

“ 1 So you two gemmens seed me go into de 
tent ? Oh, yes, I got my forchune told jes de same 
as you white gemmen. But I hain’t no stamps to 
waste on any hamateur forchun-teller. Doan’ tink 


Where the Smile Comes In. 27 

me dat foolish. — De choir boys put up fer de 
ticket. Dey thought sure, I’d git fired out, an’ I 
tink so myself. But dat young lady in dar, I 
suspec’, fears for de sixteenth ’mendment workin’ 
de law agin her, if she no treals mo like a white 
gemmen. Golly ! I’d jes like to know for sure 
which of our young ladies she am. She’s one of 
our church ’tendants, sure, an’ no strange lady 
from outside.’ 

“ ‘ Tell us why you are so positive, Obe ?’ says 
Wiggy, very earnestly, I noticed. 

“‘Jes by dis, gemmen; what I hoped to get if 
she would treat me like de white gemmen, was de 
name of some sure boss to bet on. Shucks ! I 
might hab know’d better. Whatever does our 
church ladies know about de wishes ob folks as 
play de races. So what she gib me after squeezin’ 
my han’ so powerful was jes dis: Dat if I doan’ 
git up earlier winter Sunday mornen’s an’ hab de 
church comf’table warm for early prayers, den 
some udder colored gemmen git my fat job ob 
coaxen’ de ole furnace up to sixty degrees. Now, 


28 


Where the Smite Conies In. 


dat home shot, I arger, kin only cum, gemmen, 
from some one dat is reg’lar ’tendant at our early 



sarvices, an’ beleeb me, dar’s mighty few of dem 
’sides de choir boys. I more ’an ’spects dat dis 
Gypsy Queen bis’ness am a frolic of de parson’s 
lively daughter. She awful cute at play-actin’ in 
de comic line, as you gemmens knows.’ 

“ Now, boys,” and the little coxswain’s words 
were indignant ones, “ don’t you all share my dis- 
gust over the fact that there is one young lady of 


Where the Smile Conies In . 29 

surpassing beauty in our swell parish of St. Jude 
who, for the sake of reducing a church debt, will 
— oh, here comes Wiggy himself,” and Mr. Carker 
whispers to his comrades, “ Pump him, boys ; my 
suspicions are that he knows the name of the 
handsome Gyp. You, too, would be dy’n’ to know 
her address, if any one of you once caught on to 
her good looks.” 

“ Wiggy Wiggins was pleaded with and for a 
long time he showed no signs of consenting to 
what he claimed would be ‘ an awful breach of 
confidence,’ adding, ‘ what sets you on to me as 
being in this Queen’s confidence?’” 

Some one answered : “ Poney is dead stuck 
and wants an introduction, though he professes to 
question the propriety of her telling the fortunes 
of mokes. He ain’t sure you can settle his anx- 
iety, but he says you are one of the Fair Commit- 
tee and the possibilities are encouraging that you 
can.” 

“ Will you all, every man of you, take your ‘ sol- 
emn ’ that if I let you into the secret it will go no 


30 Where the Smile Comes In. 

further than this room ? For you plainly see that 
the little affair about the sexton that Poney told 
you of will certainly make a scandal, and the 
Gyp’s name had better be kept dark.” 

They all raised their right hands and looked 
honest about what was asked of them. Mr. Wig- 
gins after another caution said : “The lovely For- 
tune Teller whom our dear Coxey wants to settle 
with for a heartache is Bobby Warbler, the tall, 
handsome choir boy who sings solos so divinely at 
St. Jude’s Chapel !” 


Where the Smile Co?nes In . 


3 1 


HOW MR. CARICER PAID HIS DEBTS. 

Amateur Coxswain Samuel Carker’s income, 
as his intimates knew quite well (for Sammy was a 
great prattler), came to him quarterly and was 
paid over by a stern trustee. Sammy loved to 
dress in the very latest cut, drive out of afternoon 
behind a good trotter, and upon dividend day 
treat his boating chums to a well-appointed dinner 
at his club. Owing entirely to these three weak- 
nesses, long before Sammy’.? ensuing’ “ quarterly ” 
was due, the young gentleman lived upon credit. 
Upon one of these dividend days Mr. Carker made 
a departure from his usual custom of sharing with 
his creditors or chums a portion of his income. A 
new horse was the reason, as it could not be 
bought upon credit. This new arrangement as to 
his quarter-day dividend was not amicably looked 
upon by Sammy’s tailor, bootmaker, cigar dealer 


32 Where the Smile Comes In . 

and livery-stable keeper, and they finally stood by 
their determination to give him not another cent’s 
worth of credit. When everything about Mr. 
Carker’s domestic establishment was not new save 
the horse, and his club chums were wondering 
over the long delayed quarterly dinner, the little 
coxswain suddenly appeared among them arrayed 
as Solomon in all the glory a swell tailor of his 
day could pile on. The club boys were per- 
plexed. They all knew to the moment the arrival 
of Sammy’s dividend and the prompt “ blowing 
off,” that could safely be relied upon. It had 
long passed without its sure sign. As now there 
was an immediate prospect of a good dinner they 
concluded to delay questions, and they fell at 
once to praising the remarkable garments their 
dear little Coxey was sporting. To better take in 
the startling show the little gent was lifted upon 
a table and every electric light and unused candle 
in the room lent its illumination to his person. 

“ How is it, Coxey,” asked Mr. Wiggy Wiggins, 
when the garments had been inspected, “ that the 


Where the Smile Comes In. 33 

show has been delayed so long? Did the cruel 
trustee pass the dividend ? For, if I remember 
rightly, the d.iy after it was fully due you sug- 
gested to the Club Steward that he ‘ hang up,’ 
your cafe ticket for a bottle of beer and a cigar of 
the lowest club quotations.” 

“And what is tougher yet,” put in Billy Barton, 
“ our delicate little Coxey upon that same night 
came waltzing in with patent-leather pumps and 
the slush outside an inch deep.” 

The new horse that ate up the entire quarterly 
allowance and the remorseless creditors who there- 
upon forced him to wear low shoes at midwinter 
were accounted for by Mr. Sammy ; but more 
money was needed yet for the dashing clothes he 
was now wearing. So the hiatus was noted. 

“ Oh, no, boys,” replied the indignant coxswain, 
“ I haven’t held up an express messenger or mur- 
dered or robbed my wealthy guardian. All I have 
done to get the needful was to work a tip on a 
certain stock that I got from Morgan Piermont’s 
favorite boot-black. See !” 


34 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


The suspicions of his wondering comrades 
quieted, Mr. Sammy’s face suddenly passed from 
an indignant mask to a merry one. 

“ Next to having money to burn,” said Sammy, 
as he flourished a big roll of greenbacks, “ comes 
the jolly sport of using it sparingly to set tired 
dunning tradesmen gleefully dancing. Boys, I 
have had much roaring fun in that line to-day. 

“ I have no doubt, Coxey,” observed the staid 
Mr. Wiggins, “ that the gentlemen you jollied 
enjoyed the novel sport a deal more than you did. 
Why not make it a popular game ? Keep it up 
the rest of your life, my boy, and I will wager 
that every tradesman will subscribe liberally for 
prizes. Come, we sports are all anxious to hear 
how you played to your own satisfaction a game 
you have had so little experience at !” 

Sammy Carker was in too amiable a condition to 
notice sarcastic remarks from any one. After 
lighting a cigarette he proceeded to detail the past 
day’s merry game. 

‘‘ The first shop I entered was little Brogan’s, the 


Where the Smile Comes In, 35 

shoemaker. He is rather off at the top of his 
head. Would you believe it that he came near 
ordering a new sign to read, 

‘ Emanuel Brogans, Boot- 
maker to his Royal Nibs, 

Coxswain Samuel Carker, 

Esq.,’ after I settled with 
him and suggested the idea. 

He has eight kids, and has 
been howling for all that I 
owed him since last summer. 

This little innocent leather- 
tapper had to receipt with 
a cross, he was so weak for 
lack of substantial fodder, so his wife said. But 
boys, depend upon it, he is feeding heartily now. 
He made signs to his strapping big wife to lead 
me to the nearest saloon and blow me off with a 
boot-leg of stale beer. You can bet that I steered 
his three hundred-pound lady clear of any gin mill, 
and, instead, I had her escort me to the nearest 
butcher shop. I sent her home with about a half 
of a sheep. 



36 Where the Smile Comes In. 

“ My next call was upon Goosey, the tailor. 
His bill was the heaviest of the lot. Goosey owes 
most of his business to boating men. Don’t all 
our uniforms, from the Commodore down, come 
out of his shop ? Nor had I forgotten his sudden 
shutting down on me for skipping him for the first 
time in years when my last quarter-day came 
round. To put him on the anxious seat for a spell 
was the way I showed him my opinion of his un- 
gentlemanly act. 4 Good-day, Goose,’ says I, 4 1 
was passing and the thought struck me to tell you 
in place of writing, that if you will come down to 
my office, say to-morrow — ’ 

44 4 Yes, yes, Mr. Samuel.’ 

44 4 Don’t interrupt, please ; if to-morrow you call, 
I will most positively inform you, Goose, when you 
can call again ?’ 

44 4 Oh ! oh! Mr. Samuels, how mistaken I was. 
For when I seed the big smile you wore as you 
opened my door, I at once said to myself, 44 He 
comes to settle some part of that terrible long 
bill.” Tell me, Mr. Samuels, have I not been very 


Where the Smile Comes In . 37 

liberal to you boating gentlemen and to you far 
more than any of the others ? And not one of 
them, Mr. Samuels, when he can pay me forgets to 
do it. That I refused you more credit, Mr. Sam- 
uels, was because I could wait no longer.’ 

“ ‘ But you’ll have to wait,’ says I, taking out my 
watch. 

“‘No, no, Mr. Samuels, not another day. It’s 
impossible; my young ladies threaten to strike. 
Their wages are delayed, for my collections are so 
unsuccessful.’ 

“ ‘ Well, then,’ says I, ‘ I’ll make you wait. It is, 
you see by my watch four minutes to ten. Could 
you, Mr. G., give me, to hustle around and collar 
the full amount of your little bill, until ten o’clock, 
say ?’ 

“The effect upon Old Goose when four minutes 
later he saw me pull out a well-stuffed wallet, was 
to leap from his cross-legged position to my side, 
pulling after him hot smoothing irons and yards of 
measuring tape, and his crooked legs at every step 
working through the arm-holes of the coat that he 


38 Where the Smile Comes In. 

had been basting. His shouts of joy brought from 
the back room the striking girls that work for him, 
and blessed if he didn’t look like kissing them all 
around. At least after he had said : ‘ Ladies, Mr. 

Carker.’ (I bowed my prettiest). ‘ He has most 
generously responded, ladies, to a request of mine ; 
your tardy wages will be paid to-night.’ 

“ Oh yes, if Goosey had led off I’d have followed 
suit, sure, they all looked so deuced handsome 
upon hearing that the strike was off. 

“ As to 1 Old Steeds ’ the livery stable proprietor, 
his mouth was opened to the dimensions of a horse 
collar when it was time for his laugh to come in, 
though at the first sight of me he grabbed a buggy 
whip and handled it as if he meant to do some- 
thing with it to me that had no laugh to it. 

“ My last benevolent visit was upon Cheroots, 
my cigar man. He also had shut down on my 
trade and worked a cheap trick on me in the bar- 
gain. Believe me, boys, I went for him the tough- 
est I knew how. The game he had worked on me 
was this. A few nights ago some young fellows 


39 


Where the Smile Comes In. 

up my way dropped in on me for a social stag. I 
was not only badly strapped at the time, but out 
of everything in the treating line. I was forced to 
borrow a dollar from the janitor of the flat ; also 
his small boy. I says to the kid : ‘ These gentle- 

men here, I know, would like a smoke. Run over 
to Mose Cheroots and invest this dollar in clay 
pipes and tobacco.’ That kid gets back in no 
time. He, I remember, had a monstrous grin on 
as he disappeared after executing his errand. He 
keeps well out of my sight now, and he knows why. 
Wouldn’t it make any one of you fighting mad, 
when under the eyes of your waiting guests you 
show up for your bottom dollar’s investment 
ninety-nine clay pipes and only one cent's worth of 
smoking stuff? That’s how old Cheroots played it 
on me, and the chaps of the surprise party jollied 
me unmercifully. 

“ With the memory of this joke to back up my 
revenge I soon had Moses just wild. I looked 
slowly over his account, figured long on every cal- 
culation, disputed vehemently every charge. I 


40 Where the Smile Comes In, 

took out my cash, counted it and recounted it. 
And I says loudly to myself, ‘ I don’t see, Sam, how 
you can, with more pressing bills to settle, pay 
Mose even a dollar on account, no, you can’t do 
even that.’ And back into my pocket goes the 
greenbacks which Mose, looking over my shoulder, 
had counted to a dollar. I hauls on my kids, tak- 
ing plenty of time too. Then I moves slowly for 
the door. I halts there with the door knob in 
hand. * Mose,’ says I, ‘ I do want to let you have 
something on that bill of mine, but as I have said, 
more pressing ones will swamp what capital my 
wallet now holds. Under these circumstances I 
can but offer you a note of mine.’ 

“ ‘ I won’t take your tarn note,’ he roared, ‘ vor it 
vill be no good to me, even for a cigarette baber. 
I’ll shall tell you joost this, Meester Samuels, ven 
you gits me to drust you ever again den I vill 
shoots myself. You know I tells you often dot I 
don’t do peezness dot vay. You are a rasgol, now 
I see ; so I goes to law apout dot pill. Yes, so 
sure as my name is Moses, I sends a warrant with 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


£i 


a gunstable to it to-morrow, an he most get vor 
me back dose exbensive Turkish bibes vot you 
hang on your vail in your smokin’ room. I know 
now, young shap, vot I long suspects, dot you blay 
de races and dot I vustold you bay out monies vor 
a fast horse vot should go to a starvin’ pootmaker.’ 

“ ‘ Hold on, Mose, no more of that starving 
bootmaker business, if you please,’ and I let him 
have a good look at little Brogan’s receipted bill, 
also a half dozen others. He was convinced now 
that I was out loaded with scrip to settle with pre- 
ferred creditors at one hundred cents to the dollar. 
He at once took a big drop. He got up a smile, 
rubbed the knuckles of one hand with the fingers 
of the other. He took off his specs, and that he 
might be sure I had not forged the pile of receipted 
bills, he examined each one with a magnifying 
glass. When he had finished he was almost in 
hysterics with astonishment. ‘ My dear Mr. Sam- 
uels,’ he asked in a trembling voice , 4 have you any 
goot reason vor not making me one of dose habby 
braferred greditors ?’ 


42 Where the Smile Comes In. 

“‘Yes, Moses,’ says I, ‘ninety-nine clay pipes 
and a pinch of smoking stuff are quite good reasons 
enough, I’m thinking. You are a droll old gentle- 
man, Moses.’ 

“‘Veil dot was a joke dot I should not haf al- 
lowed. Von of your poating vrieads, Mr. Samuel, 
dot dry shap, Meester Viggins, vos here de night 
of your barty. He know dot small poy you sent 
and he says to dot youngster, “ So, Sammy can 
give barties but forgets his own dear vrends. I 
vill let him know I am highly offended.” So dot 
varm vrend of yours, Meester Samuels, tells dot 
poy vot to git vid your tollar. So you see I vos 
not so much to blame and vill make all right at 
vonce. Shall it pe a vine Henry Clay ? Take 
your choice of any prand in my store, Meester 
Samuels.’ 

/‘After Moses had given me the name of the 
author of that hoax I was not long in proving to 
him that he ought to take my note without a kick, 
especially as it was a U. S. note. Moses got un- 
seemingly gay for one of his years. He frolicked 


Where the Smile Comes In, 43 

and skipped all over the little shop, and it would 
not have astonished me had he attempted a waltz 
with the broken-nosed wooden Indian Maid stand- 
ing outside. Boys, my debts are now all paid, but 
one. Wiggy, old man, I owe you an inning. Keep 
a sharp eye, for I am impatient for a settlement.” 

It is sad to record that the very next tip on a 
dead sure stock speculation whispered in Mr. 
Carker’s greedy ear swamped the little left of the 
profits of the first, and to make good the margin 
Sammy’s broker has an injunction upon most of 
Mr. Carker’s maturing dividend. The little cox- 
swain has delayed his revenge upon joker Wiggy. 
A very recent loan from that jocose gentleman to 
Mr. C. is what causes the little coxswain to pro- 
crastinate. 

Mr. Wiggins is authority for saying that a Fresh- 
man in his college days worked the same joke off 
upon a Senior ; therefore he has no claims as hav- 
ing originated it. 


44 


Where the Smite Comes In 


THE HARD LINES THAT FELL TO A SWELL. 

Billy Barton was a popular member of a 
swell club. The house service from the grizzly 
steward down to the mulatto youth in a page’s 
uniform who answered the door-bell, bustled to 
serve the popular member with an activity and 
zeal only second to the attention given to the 
Club’s President. The virtues and attractions 
possessed by young Barton are best shown by the 
words of his shadow, Mr. Samuel Carker. “ Like 
Billy ? Well, I should say so, and why ? ’cause the 
youngster is so eternally good-natured and con- 
siders it his religion to place every body’s comfort 
before his own. Now, if I haven’t said enough I’ll 
jes’ tack on, that he has a bloomin’ knack of say- 
ing and doing, too, the right thing in the right 
place. Yes, Billy is a peach.” 

Very few in these prosaic days would reject as a 


Where the Smile Comes In. 45 

longed-for epitaph words such as these, even if 
chiseled on a head-stone in the very patter of 
many youths of our day when in close fellowship 
of their tribe. 

It was startling news to the club to learn how in 
one short day the death of Barton’s father had 
left him a penniless orphan. Investigation showed 
that the great factory owner had sunk the last 
dollar of a large fortune, rather than throw an 
army of workmen during protracted and very hard 
times, out of employment. 

Billy promptly sent in his resignation and in- 
sisted upon its acceptance by the Club. At the 
same time his shadow, Mr. Samuel Carker, ceased 
to haunt with his chirping presence and brilliant 
clothes his more than second home, the Club’s 
Cafe. When after a long absence Mr. Sammy did 
appear, the excuse he gave convinced his chums 
that there was another side to his character that 
they had failed to notice. The little dude had 
been devoting his nights to consoling Billy by 
patient games of chess, or brightened at intervals 


46 Where the Smile Comes In. 

with cheery songs, in place of the inevitable beer, 
the hard lines of his idol. 

“ Our old chum,” piped the dapper club man, as 
he backed to the grand fire-place and made an 
inverted V of his short logs, “ has taken a terrible 
tumble from a swell’s point of view. What dear 
old Bill has pulled through up to date, to picture, 
as it should be, needs an A No. I. parson chinner. 
A stammering spieler, as I am, cannot do the 
story justice, and believe me, lads, I’m not going 
to give you any fairy tale, only the cold truth. 
Billy’s pride is up and he won’t handle a dollar of 
the heavy purse we all chipped in on. No, not 
as a loan, even. But don’t forget, he had watery 
eyes when he penned his thanks. Brother Billy, 
Boys, has set for himself the hard lines he is 
working along. His dead governor, in early life, 
was as plain a workman as was ever turned out 
and it pleased him to death to chin over it. At a 
swell dinner that Billy gave just before his father’s 
death, the old gent, when the coffee came on, 
showed positive signs of trottin’ out one of his 


Where the Smile Comes In 47 

pick-and-shovel-day stories, but his son succeeded 
in choking him off. 

“ Billy says he remembers with a heartache the 
feeble protest made by the honest old democrat. 
‘Sammy,’ he says, ‘my idea of the only road for 
me to take now to down my remorse is the rough 
one dear old pop, at my age, journeyed.’ Boys, 
you may safely bank upon the fact that he did, 
without a solitary whimper, just what he said he 
would do, and that’s old man Billy, every time. 
Now I’ll proceed to give you a few points, from 
his first round-up to to-night, and if you don’t say 
he is entitled to the belt then I’m a chump. 

“ At the sale of all his and the governor’s per- 
sonals, Billy says to me, ‘ Sammy, the next thing 
on the catalogue is pop’s old saddle horse. When 
I was a boy, after father had his ride I 'always 
rode Dick to the stables. Now, I’m very near 
cleaned out in buying in the old furniture my 
parents started housekeeping on. If what’s left 
me don’t cover the bid on old Brown Dick I shall 
ask you to help me out. You may wonder, Sam, 


4 8 


Where the Smile Covies In. 


what I shall do with an aged horse and a lot of old 
sticks. There is a worthy old lady, the wife of a 
grocery man, who was my nurse and our former 
housekeeper. She shall have the furniture and 
she will see, you bet, that no light-headed grocer’s 
boy thrashes the life out of Brown Dick in these, 
his last days.’ 

“ Boys, that was the one occasion that Billy weak- 
ened a bit in his set determination not to accept 
a loan. Mr. Billy Barton’s present address is that 
same humble corner grocery. I’m wasting words 
to say that Old Brown Dick has a quiet life and 
that the worthy couple who run that humble shop 
are dead stuck on their star boarder. Aunt Susan, 
as he calls the groceryman’s lady, h is selected 
from the choice chromos donated by the trade all 
the many pictures in Bill’s room. Boys, you know 
our board ot nabobs trusted the selection of the 
Club’s pictures almost exclusively to Barton. 
Imagine this acknowledged art connoisseur sleep- 
ing peacefully where from white-washed walls 
look down upon him white-capped cooks turning 


Where the Smile Comes In. 49 

the brown buckwheat or slicing the picturesque 
strawberry short-cake. 

“ Having found lodgings, 1 though ever so 
humble/ as the old song has it, Billy tackles the 
conundrum : ‘ What shall I turn to that I may 
earn my daily hash. I started out this morning/ 
says he in making his first daily report to me over 
the smoke of our clay pipes, * loaded up to the 
collar button with hope and enthusiasm. Swells 
fresh in the business, Sammy, carry a big load of 
these two bracers. Now see how quick the evap- 
oration was. In chasing up “ wants,” for clerks, 
the best game the newspapers offered me, I found 
I was one of a big mob. They were all nervously 
anxious and judging by their clean but seedy 
clothing, all hard up. I soon retired from the 
crowd, not having the heart to compete with 
them/ 

“ Another night brought him home pretty nigh 
exhausted. He had invested his last dollar in ad- 
vertising; his only return was a cheeky proposition 
from an inventor who wanted some one to test a 


50 Where the Smile Comes In. 

patent trolley-car fender. This noble philanthro- 
pist had a five-dollar bill to donate to the party 
who would lie down before a big passenger car 
under a full head of motor-power and take the 
chances of being scooped up alive. The way Billy 
dealed out this generous offer, made me feel half- 
certain that the youngster had serious thoughts of 
making a dummy of himself for the sake of collar- 
ing the donation. He has also taken a shy at the 
possibilities of getting stamps in the Industrial In- 
surance line. The only branch open to him was 
workin’ house-servants on the twenty-five-cent-a- 
week racket. The youngster, upon his first trial, 
was so fresh to the business as to ring a front-door 
gong instead of kicking in a panel at the servants’ 
entrance. The tongue lashings poor Bill was 
treated to, caused him to shake that job speedily. 
Believe me, boys, though I am a little too tough in 
reputation to be suspected of harboring anything 
like sentiment, yet I think I must have felt some- 
thing in that line, when Billy, one evening after a 
long smoke and deuced f$w words, suddenly 


Where the Smile Comes In, 


5 r 

startled me with : ‘ Sammy, you have been good 
to me all along, but we must part after to-night. 
Your high-toned raising surely couldn’t be equal to 
the strain of having a chum who dresses as I shall 
to-morrow. My London made togs, Sammy, are 
too gay for the business. Before I sleep to-night, 
with candle-grease drippings on them and with 
sweeping the floor with them, I think they will do, 
and that I’ll not be recognized as a busted swell 
out of a job. There is an idea of much prevalence 
in this big manufacturing city, that a well-dressed 
dude is only good for soft snaps. Dressed as I 
shall be to-morrow, if by accident I should meet 
Miss — you know who, Sammy — even she would not 
know me, I’m sure. My short experience, Sam, 
tells me this ; a chap in a high hat and pointed 
yellow shoes seeking work, is much heavier handi- 
capped than a ragged tough. I have been all 
wrong, Sammy, from the first. I should have 
commenced with the shirt sleeves, lad, father’s first 
working uniform.’ 

‘“Billy,’ says I, ‘ if I find you to-morrow night 


52 Where the Smile Comes In . 

sooty as a chimney sweep, blessed if I don’t invest 
in overalls and play the game with you. No, my 
boy, I ain’t to be shook on any funny business such 
as that.’ 

“ * We’ll see,’ says Billy, with that heavenly twin 
smile of his. 

“ I had to go out of town for the month follow- 
ing. When I returned, I chose for my morning’s 
constitutional, a walk up Billy’s way. As I pegged 
on, a cart, drawn by an old horse passed up the 
street, loaded with groceries. The driver wore a 
long, blue-check apron. His coat was making his 
seat comfortable. His hat was a holy terror. 
That driver, boys, was Billy, sure enough. ‘ Now,’ 
says I, ‘Samuel Carker, Esq., here’s your opportu- 
nity to test if your friendship is equal to claiming 
in public, on this swell, residential street, an ac- 
quaintance with that guy on the grocery cart !’ 
Gentlemen, I had on my high hat just from a hat- 
ter’s, my new walking coat that was built on the 
latest Prince of Wales’ lines, my kids of delicate 
lilac, and trousers the latest realization of a swell 


Where the Smile Comes In, 53 

tailor’s dreams. Nevertheless, I took to the mid- 
dle of the asphalt and sprinted, overtook the cart, 
hoisted myself clear of the tail-board, and landed 
upon my knees in a dozen of eggs and several 
pounds of lard. Oh, yes, boys, I froze to a seat 
beside him in spite of his earnest protest and a 
smiling threat to send me flying at the first sharp 
corner. I told Billy it was Bible truth, that sitting 
there beside him I felt as proud as if I was doing 
a coaching parade in company with a famous New 
York whip. ‘ Rats !’ was what he fired back, though 
he gave me, as he said it, a good squeeze with his 
left arm. Boys, it’s my firm intention to have Billy 
photographed in that long, blue check apron, aside 
of me in my swellest suit. Yes, if I have to club 
him into a photograph gallery. 

“In our chase around that aristocratic district 
for orders, and to dump what was in the cart, I 
saw the Pride of the Club, lads, tote a box of beer 
and a head of lettuce into the very house where, 
one short year ago, he led in its elegant drawing- 
room, the swellest German of the season. How 


54 Where the Smile Conies In. 

docs that picture strike you, gentlemen ? A king 
out of business peddling clams ain’t nowhere be- 
side it, to my thinking. 

“ When he returns to the grocery he makes no 
bones, if it’s a Friday, of opening oysters and clams 
at a fish-stand outside. His dexterity at this new 
job caused me to ask where in thunder he learned 
the knack of opening, so infernally easy, the tight- 
mouthed shells, — ‘At some night-school run by a 
professional oyster-dealer, I suppose ?’ 

“ ‘ Oh, no, Sammy,’ he answered, ‘ experience at 
stag chafing-dish parties was all I started in on, 
and between you and me, Sam, it’s about the only 
available lesson high life taught me. This is a 
new branch to the business, and I suggested it ; it’s 
paying well, too. By-the-by, how djd the effect of 
the show window strike you, Sam ? That’s another 
of my suggestions. I tell you, Sammy, I am get- 
ting kind of proud of the slow but steady increase 
to the business my ideas and efforts are bringing 
in. The boss is now ailing, so the business is left 
pretty much to me. I have my eye upon the shop 


Where the Smile Comes In. 55 

next door, for we want more room. Aunt Sue 
thinks so, too.’ 

“Just think of it, boys, the Pride of the Club 
tumbles out of his bunk about the time most of 
us turn in. These hours before daybreak get 
Billy' the pick of the market. In spite of his 
tough lines the Pride of the Club is looking, I am 
pleased to say, provokingly healthy. Business on 
that corner is booming, 
and I’ll put up heavy 
stakes with any one of 
you sports that before 
a year rolls by you’ll see 
a big first-class establish- 
ment boomed from that 
one-horse affair Billy is 
clerking for ; further- 
more, stamps up that 
the new sign will be 
* William Barton and 
Co.’ To-day the little shop shows much improve- 
ment in stock, customers and show window. Billy 



56 Where the Smile Conics tru 

lays himself out on that show window, and the old 
crippled proprietor, his dear old lady, and myself 
stood before it a full half hour one day taking in 
the wonderful show Billy’s artistic feelings had 
created with a few cranberries, dried fruit, lemons, 
fresh eggs, celery and lots of other commodities. 
Give us a fresh smoke. Thanks. 

“ Boys, has any one of us — if cleaned out to a 
penny and nothing bankable expected or hoped 
for from any point of the compass — has any one 
of us, I say, the sand in him to tackle with an ever 
smiling face his rough fate as this dear boy of ours 
has done? Ain’t he a dandy though! I’ll con- 
fess that I have fancied myself in his place at the 
start and pictured what I might have done. Boys, 
I fear that my first step would have been to stick 
to my Club till my big overdues would force the 
House Committee to fire me. When they were 
ready to bounce me I’d have struck you all, right 
and left, for small loans. Great Scott ! How I 
would have loaded up at the steward’s free feeds 
while my membership lasted. I’d have possibly 


Where the Smile Comes In. 5 7 

raffled off my big stock of German favors, and on 
swell party nights perhaps you’d find me with a 
livery coat and corked face driving my trotter to 
a cab and fighting for a double fare with all the 
enjoyment of an Irish hackman.” 

It was told at the Club some weeks later that a 
very stylish close carriage had been seen halted be- 
fore Mr. Sammy’s flat, and that that young gentle- 
man, when summoned by a footman, had had a 
long interview at the carriage door with its veiled 
occupant. When finally the carriage drove away 
the gossip says ‘ Mr. Sammy holding his hat in 
one hand used the other to wave imaginary 
kisses in the direction of the fast disappearing 
vehicle.’ When the dapper coxswain upon his 
next appearance at the Club was taxed for an 
explanation of his pantomimic gallantry in the 
broad light of day, his characteristic reply was : 
“ I could’nt restrain myself. Dear old Billy’s 
sweetheart, God bless her, is loyal to him in spite 
of her kicking aristocratic relatives. Yes, the daisy 
in the coach was indeed his best girl. Some good- 


58 Where the Smile Comes In. 

natured idiot has given me dead away as to what 
I told you all of Bill’s fight for an honest living. 
Believe me the Daisy put her tiny little gloved 
hand in my tough oar-blistered paw and warbled : 
‘ How I would have liked unseen to have over- 
heard your graphic story of poor Billy’s brave 
struggles. How kind of you ! and I thank you 
fervently for devoting your evenings to cheering 
the poor boy. We wondered what had become of 
you. We have all missed you very much.’ As 
soon as she could master her voice she told me a 
very happy message to carry to Billy. Some how 
everything lovely is traveling Billy’s way, now he’s 
getting on his pins again. But I ain’t jealous, no 
indeed.” 


Where the Smile Comes In, 


59 


MR. CARKER AS BEST MAN. 

Yes, I bossed this wedding, from the church 
altar down to the “ good-bye business.” It went 
off first-class except one bad break at the opening 
of the programme, and that was no fault of mine. 
What I refer to happened this way : The groom, 
when he came to the last touch in his make-up for 
the important part he was to perform, gave a sud- 
den yell. 

“ Hello !” says I, “ Feel as if you want to back 
out? Too late, too late, old man.” 

Again the yell : “ The ring ! the ring ! what the 
deuce have I done with it ?” 

“ That’s a very important part of the business, 
Billy,” I reply. “ You are fresh at this work and 
you will ball it all up unless you brace up at once ; 
come now, put on your thinking cap, old man, for 
there is no time to lose. As you say you have 


60 Wliere the Smite Comes In. 

fished in all your pockets, perhaps you were fool- 
ing with it in the carriage and lost it there ? How 
does that idea strike you, Billy ?” 

“ It’s here ! it’s here ! in this room somewhere ; 
for I had it only a second ago.” 

Just as the distressed groom said these words, 
in at the vestry-door popped the head of Wiggy 
Wiggins, the head-usher. Wiggy yells, almost 
loud enough to be heard at the front pews of the 
crowded church : “ Trot out your boy, Sammy, his 
daisy’s carriage is at the door.” 

I jumped for Wiggy and hurriedly told him to 
hold back the procession the best he knew how. 

Taking Billy, the groom, at his word that the 
ring was on his person somewhere, again and again 
, were his vest and trouser pockets turned inside 
out. No ring there, certainly. The perplexity of 
his situation brought mad tears to the groom’s 
eyes. This weeping business brought out his nose- 
wipe. Then, happily, it was explained. The care- 
ful duffer had tied the precious gold band in one 
corner of his handkerchief. I immediately sent 


Where the Smile Comes In. 61 

word to Wiggy to have the wedding march let 
loose and the waiting bride handed out of the car- 
riage. Next I heard the rustle of the excited con- 
gregation as they rose to get all the view of the 
bride that a standing position would allow. 

But the nervous groom was no sooner out of his 
first bad fix than he stumbled quickly into a fresh 
one. In fumbling to untie the knot in which he 
had secured it, pop, goes the ring ; but in what 
direction ? That was the sudden conundrum given 
us. Down upon our knees, dropped parson, 
assistant, groom and myself. In the excited hunt, 
we banged heads, and were tangled with flowing 
surplices. As our party in the little vestry room 
were cantering about in this manner, in again skips 
the puzzled head-usher with : “ The old man and 

daughter have halted under the gallery loft. What’s 
up now ? Leap frog, hey !” 

Wiggy is a bright boy, and took in the new situ- 
ation at once, but the bride’s father, who is a little 
hard of hearing, didn’t catch on to what the head- 
usher was up to ; so Wiggy and his chum had to 


62 


Where the Smile Conies In. 


move on ahead, but they got in a pile of slow 
marching in spite of the organ’s time. Now there 
was a portiere drawn across the entrance from the 
church to the vestry room. The bride and her 
father were about six pews off from the Chancel- 
steps, when it flashed upon me that the trouble- 
some ring might have rolled beneath this dividing 
curtain. I was right ; there it lay before the low- 



est step of the chancel. I seized a long pole used 
by the sexton in lighting the chandeliers. There 
was a wide space between the floor and the bottom 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


63 


of the portiere. Now it’s a true fishing story I am 
giving you. I hauled in that ring, beneath the cur- 
tain, so deftly that the bride’s father, to this hour, 
can’t account for a mysterious rap his tender, old 
corns got as he released her arm at the chancel- 
steps. 

Bless you, young man, as I have been best man 
to a dozen, at least, of my chums, I could spin out 
for your paper several breaks that would match 
even this one. Sometimes it’s the dominie himself, 
who is to blame. If the parson is young and very 
near-sighted, he needs watching close, or he’ll be 
likely to astonish the nearest bridesmaid by his 
earnestness to have her “ love and obey until death, 
etc.,” the very man her dear friend, the bride, is 
entitled to be hitched to. 

“ Think the show of presents up-stairs numerous 
and costly,” you say ? You are right, sonny; and 
I hope you have the names of the givers all spelled 
right ; for there are some swell names that will 
look well in your paper. Left out none, I hope? 
What ! didn’t see my gift among ’em ? But it is 


64 Where the Smile Comes In. 

there, and you have overlooked it. I ain’t blam- 
ing you, young fellah. A small pill-box has but a 
slight show of being taken for a present, among 
French clocks and silverware, yet any pill in that 
box will do the bride quite as much good as, at 
least, an overdose of French clocks. I see you are 
not a little puzzled at my notion of a new depart- 
ure in the wedding present line ? Before you leave, 
you go back to the room, upon the lid of the pill- 
box you will read : “ Dr. Bestman’s prescription, 
to be taken as required.” My pills are bright, new 
half-eagles. Do you think the healthiest bride in 
any borough of the U. S. would say that she does- 
n’t need a tonic such as Dr. Bestman’s ; say after 
an expensive shopping-tour ? Scarcely ! Another 
beautiful effect of these golden pills is that they 
are sure cure for the surfeit brought on by too 
many presents identically alike. A bride with one 
or more of my golden pills is made happy over the 
thought that what she would like is left entirely to 
her own choice. Much experience as “ best-man ” 
has led to this sure cure of the perplexity so many 


/ / here the Smile Comes In. 65 

young married folks encounter from the ideas of 
gift-bestowing friends running in one channel. As 
you must have noticed there is in the great display 
up-stairs, five pickle-forks. These represent the 
deep affection of five widely-dispersed relatives. 
Ten other households have marked this happy day 
for the bride, by ten costly French clocks ; twelve 
single gentlemen have expressed their remem- 
brances, by expressing to this house twelve fish- 
knives. 

The couple hitched to-day are to live, at present, 
in a small flat, as their financial resources are not 
princely, so they will be brought in very close con- 
tact with those twelve ticking French clocks. 
Even with one in the cook’s bedroom, another in 
her kitchen, and one for each other department, 
including bathroom, and yet a clock or two remains 
unprovided for, unless they are piled up, one over 
another, in a lumber-room. Whew ! what a job 
these twelve gentlemen have imposed upon 'the 
young groom when Sunday winding time is due. 
Would his parson, think you, believe his story of 


66 


Where the Smile Comes In . 


how he happens to come in late every Sabbath 
morning ? And new acquaintances will certainly 
suspect him to be a clock-maker in liquidation and 
much of his stock to be disposed of. 

With their moderate means how can this couple 
have full use of those twelve silver fish-knives? 
Even in Lent I don't believe that the wealthiest 
Cardinal at Rome has a dinner of twelve courses 
of sea-food. Don’t it strike you now, young fellah, 
that my pill-box present, if universally used, would 
knock the stuffing out of Wedding Present Ex- 
change business? Yes, you have Doctor Best- 
man’s consent to advertise his cure, and a bully 
illustration it would make, say a picture represent- 
ing my friend, Billy the groom, taking off his coat 
to tackle his Sunday morning job with the twelve 
French tickers ; or a sketch of the bride dodging 
under her parasol to avoid a shower of descending 
fish-knives and pickle-forks ! 

“ Arrived, you say, too late to take down the 
speeches at the wedding breakfast ?” That’s bad 
for me. Had you been there you would have seen 


Where the Smile Comes In. 67 

another instance of where a professional Best-man 
is of good service. Every guest upon these occa- 
sions is right jolly until the father of the bride gets 
up to toast the favorite daughter he is about to 
lose. But the old lady invariably holds out 
bravely; but poor pop! He may have been a 
rough fighter in his day and never blanched w’hen 
facing almost certain death, but he ain’t equal to 
the task of calmly wording his farewell to the light 
of the household. And who doesn’t like him the 
better for this show of softening emotion ? 

“ Where do I come in,” you ask, “ when senti- 
ment gets the best of a brave man ?” 

In helping him out, sonny. If I ever tax myself 
to say a good thing, it’s when on an occurrence like 
this I can decently ring in. So I take up the job 
where the noble old trump’s voice gets muffled, 
and the surroundings are becoming more like a 
funeral than a happy wedding. I seldom fail to 
lead the mourners back to uproarious jollity, for 
you know, sonny, laughter and tears don t dwell 
very far apart. 


68 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


“ Have I a type-written copy of my speech ?” 
Look here, young man, you ain’t no kid reporter, 
that little give away of yours as to humorous 
speakers tells me that — well, to be honest, I do 
take some trouble to fix up before-hand some 
ideas ; the toast, certainly, and a few points to 
hang a joke or two on. 

“ Be contented with the toast,” hey ? Well, I’ll 
repeat it : “ Here’s to the happy couple ; may 

their voyage of Life be a long one, and the only 
squalls they encounter, come from the direction of 
the Nursery.” Whew ! what a whack, with her 
folded big fan, the bride’s mother treated my 
shoulder to the moment I got that sentiment out 
of my mouth. 


Where the S7nile Comes In. 


69 


CONFESSION OF A PHOTOGRAPH CRANK. 

I MUST, as my first confession, say that the term 
“crank,” by its ambiguity gives one the widest 
kind of freedom as to answers, if it is poked at him 
as a sort of conundrum. It suits my fancy in this 
paper to suppose “ crank ” to be a quaint Ameri- 
canism for a tireless rider of a hobby, and which 
title will be, if he gains no success, his sure epi- 
taph. Had this title been in use in the days of 
Columbus, I am sure that the old sea-captains 
would have used it freely, as they sneered at his 
three little ships sinking beneath the western hori- 
zon, and have said, “ There sails the most bloom- 
ing crank that ever put to sea !” If they did say 
so then, it is also reasonable, that when Mr. C. re- 
turned with his pockets crammed with virgin gold, 
an Indian princess on one arm and a box of Henry 
Clays under the other, these generous tars were 


70 


Where the Smile Comes In, 


impatient to paint old Lisbon red in honor of 
his success, The photographic crank, if he starts 
with the tripod for his first obstacle to conquer, is 
sure to find this three-legged gent subject to fits of 
intoxication, or shamming to be so. How he be- 
haved himself when he and I were introduced was 
in keeping with Mr. T.’s bad reputation among 
amateurs. I had no sooner saddled him with my 
new and expensive camera, than his foreleg made 
a half-circle movement, the other two following his 
example. Then he suddenly humped himself and 
shot his load into a clump of briery bushes, and 
with one quick, dying kick was off his legs entirely. 
This undignified performance in the high-kicking 
line upon investigation proved that the three-legged 
gent’s society had been contemptuously spurned 
by a very sober land turtle. The indignant turtle 
could not see the fun of having his roof mistaken for 
a mossy stone, and he moved himself and his home 
promptly, and the staggering tripod in trying to 
follow Mr. Turtle suffered the usual' punishment 
of maudlin parties who go about on uncertain legs. 


Where the Smile Comes In. 7 r 

When I had Mr. Tripod on his pegs again, that he 
might have a chance of redeeming his character, he 
certainly looked as if he did mean to reform. I 
believed him, or I would not have said, “ There 
will be no more of your funny business, this trip, 
Mr. Three-shanks !” Alas ! I had carried my con- 
fidence in the dissipated wretch too far. The 
next second, I, myself was prostrated. The dis- 
reputable Three-shanks had resented a walk-over ; 
he was not so drunk, it seems, as to calmly allow 
the using of his rear leg as a pathway for any ama- 
teur to travel up, even if a hasty focus was needed. 
As picking briers out of my face might be the 
means of my losing a snapshot or two at a near-by 
cow, I ran with my camera to the nearest fence, and 
was by this movement rendered independent of 
the vagaries of Mr. Three-shanks. This, my first 
out-door picture, I blush to confess, developed the 
likeness of a heifer that seemed perfectly content 
with the grazing its own backbone afforded. Two 
rapid impressions upon the same plate, with but a 


j2 Where the Smile Comes In . 

slight change of focus, is the sure receipt for a 
similar bovine mixture. 

It is universally conceded by survivors, that in 
the early stages of the amateur’s fever the patient 
is wholly insane. A reckless waste of films is the 
form the disease first takes. When it was under- 
stood in my immediate neighborhood that I was 
snapping at everything in sight, right and left, and 
free of charge, my friends fairly mobbed me. 
When every one had had a sitting, and my insane 
cry was for more subjects, I was answered by all 
the pet dogs in the vicinity. Many of these 
household pets visited my studio in costume. In 
the procession were seen pugs choking over the 
tight strings of frilled night-caps ; St. Bernards 
panting in blizzard ulsters ; greyhounds scratching 
vainly at the buttons of their tight knee-breeches, 
and bright-eyed terriers blinded by spectacles and 
monocles. There were several spirited dog-fights 
during the waiting for turns. It was sometimes 
wearisome work to pose the curs, and harder yet to 
keep them posed. A fox-terrier, for instance, had 


Where the Smile Comes In. 73 

calmly accepted, after many Cuffs, the situation of 
a sleeping babe, but at the first flap of the artist’s 
focusing cloth, he flashed from his cradle as if his 
nurse had whispered the magic word. “Rats!” 
After a terrier or two had rivaled my art by a suc- 
cessfully executed picture of their teeth upon my 
person, I began to give evidence that the worst 
stage of my disease had been reached. In a week 
or so I had become strong enough to close my 
eyes to the rare temptation — a young pig in knick- 
erbockers. 

As my malady lessened from things terrestrial 
I sought to elevate my degraded camera. The 
craze to record lightning was certainly a more 
heavenly aspiration. The results were, for a long 
spell, only thunder-storm duckings and attendant 
bad colds. When victory at last reached me its 
price was not altogether a bargain, and has a story 
attached to it. 

I was a summer boarder at a New Jersey moun- 
tain resort. One night as I looked from my bed- 
room window, the little valley in front of the 


74 Where the Smile Comes In. 

house was echoing occasional thunder peals. I 
had done much tramping with my camera during 
the closing day and I needed abed sadly. But 
the temptation to tackle Jersey lightning, straight, 
or crooked, was too powerful. A few hours after 
I had determined to sacrifice my needed repose to 
the claims of art, the upper halls of that peaceful 
hotel were echoing the cry of “ Thieves!” All the 
boarders were quickly wide awake, and very much 
so was a big watch-dog. This animal was raving 
from the miserable success that attended his many 
attempts to leap upon an upper story porch-roof. 
Old gents with suspenders dangling at their stock- 
ing heels, and white frilled females of all ages, 
stood shouting and trembling at half-open doors. 
The words of the chorus were these: “Police!” 
“ Porter !” “ Shoot him !” “ Please don’t shoot 

him!” “ Whose diamonds are gone !” “ Let in the 
dog, Porter!” “ Don’t you do it, Porter !” As for 
the young men of the house, they slid down the 
stair rails like firemen, and all determined to 
locate (it was a temperance house) the headquar- 


Where ihe Smile Comes In . 75 

ters of the trouble in the immediate vicinity of a 
box of bottled beer. There these merry gentle- 
men, finding they were 
in no danger of being 
interfered with by the 
supposed house break- 
ers or the panic- 
stricken guests, cele- 
brated the fact by put- 
ting the beer where 
thieves would not mo- 
lest, closing the cere- 
monies with a noisy 
cane-rush in the hotel 
office. The creaking of 
with a camera upon an upper porch had set 
the dog barking, the men shouting, the women 
screaming and the young men beer hunting. The 
storm outside set in fiercely before the storm 
inside had subsided, so this ghostly camera crank 
had to take a protracted ducking or give reasons 
before a multitude of witnesses for the big bundle, 



a tin roof and a ghost 


j6 Where the Smile Comes In, 

wrapped in a bed-quilt he had under his arm. He 
chose the dry side of the problem. 

At the breakfast-table next morning every 
boarder was merry, save a crusty old Judge, who 
had a rheumatic souvenir of the night’s dramatic 
performance, having done much skipping in his 
stocking feet in drafty places. This old Judge 
had a rod in sharp pickle for the camera crank, 
and that gentlemen was sure to have a lashing 
from it before he was much older. 

I suppose that words are wasted when I confess 
that it was upon my shoulders the crusty old legal 
gent was itching to exercise his rod. The day 
was a very wet one. A prize was offered for the 
best suggestion as to a mutual entertainment. 
The old Judge with an eye to his plans for my dis- 
comfort, suggested a moot court, and volunteered, 
without being pressed, to occupy the judgment 
bench. He got the prize. Then the conundrum 
came : “ Whom shall we try ?” 

I was busy up in my own room mounting some 
photographs for a lady amateur, one of the board- 


Where the Smile Comes In. 77 

ers, whom I was desirous of pleasing. She was a 
bright and pretty specimen of a Vassar graduate. 
I was unaware that a conspiracy in the parlor 
down stairs, guided by the rheumatic Judge was 
working to make a victim of myself. The newly- 
appointed sheriff, his warrant in hand, soon had 
me in court. There I was tried for a breach of 
the peace. With a box of caramels for a retainer, 
I secured the stunning, good-looking Vassar girl 
for my counsel. With an Oxford cap and a black 
silk dress, she made a most lovely Portia; my 
album will show that. A red-nosed law student, 
as Prosecuting Attorney, did my case at first much 
harm. The witnesses he called were mostly the 
youths who knew all about the mysterious disap- 
pearance of the private stock of beer, and he and 
they did their best to prove the inspiration of my 
midnight quest to be beer, and not Jersey light- 
ning. 

The savage old judge suddenly became furiously 
interested, when it came to his knowledge that his 
private stock of beer had been looted. 


78 Where the Smile Comes In. 

“ Hey ! God bless me ; intoxicated was he ? 
and on my beer, too !” he growled in an under- 
tone, and for me another and a stouter rod was 
consigned to the old gent’s pickle-brine. Thanks 
to my daisy lawyer she got in an alibi, and the 
beer confiscators looked rather sheepish over the 
miscarriage of their sneaking trick. When she 
arose to address the jury, she beamed upon them 
with a face full of killing smiles ; when she came 
to tackle her closing appeal her elegant, lace-edged 
handkerchief and her flashlight diamond ring had 
lots of work to do. 

“ Statistics, gentlemen of the jury,” she declared, 
“ show that this quiet and select hotel can boast of 
only one male dancing partner to twenty of the 
other sex. An unfavorable verdict, gentlemen of 
the jury, will mean banishment to my honorable, 
sensitive client. In the name of the greatly pre- 
dominant fair sex, I implore you, gentlemen of tlie 
jury, to spare them such a harrowing bereavement. 
Oh, no, gentlemen of the jury, we have not, to use 
a classic phrase, ‘ young men to burn.’ Alas ! if 


Where the Smile Comes In . 79 

my persuasive words should fall on unsympathetic 
ears, I shall recommend to the mercy of the court 
this, my most agreeable of dancing partners.*’ 
(Foreman of the jury casts a murderous look upon 
me.) “ Oh, most noble judge! If not presump- 
tuous upon the part of the defendant’s admiring 
counsel ” (foreman shakes his fist at me), “ the pen- 
alty of my client’s indiscretion merits, in my hum- 
ble opinion, but a slight caution to habiliment him- 
self, in the future, in gum-shoes when promenading 
creaking tins at the still hour of midnight in search 
of phenomenal pictures.” 

What else but a shouting verdict of “Not 
Guilty !” might have been expected after hearing 
such a touching appeal, and beholding so much 
loveliness backing it ? Alas ! The foreman of that 
jury was engaged to my charming PorTa. Those 
words of hers: “His admiring counsel” did the 
business for me. The foreman, in jealous anger, 
tampered with the jury. Perfecto cigars all around 
was the price of their perfidy. It was an early les- 
son to Miss P. never again to spout so feelingly of 


8o Where the Smile Comes In. 

any man, save him whose ring she wore. Time 
was up, the mad lover thought, when his best girl 
must quit such talk, even in a legal way. The 
caramel retainer, also, troubled this jealous fore- 
man, for all through the weary trial, my candies 
were very sustaining to my hard-worked counsel ; 
yet not one was bestowed upon anyone in the jury- 
box. 

Now I come to where the old Judge was lying in 
wait for me. His intentions were to preface my 
sentence with withering words of contempt as to 
my well-loved hobby. 

“ Justice,” he intimated, “ has been on an unsuc- 
cessful still hunt for the Kodak Fiend, but has 
come up with him at last.” Here the old judge 
cracked his bony knuckles to demonstrate his good 
luck in being the successful hunter. Now, upon 
the marble-top table at his side, was a photograph 
album upon which the jury had been sworn. Three 
pictures had caught his eye while waiting for the 
jury. With these for a text, he opened his big 
mouth and roared as if he were in a big court-room 


Where the Smile Comes In. 81 

and the worst kind of criminal stood cowed before 
him. “Sir!” he thundered, “what punishment is 
too severe for one, who, armed with the stealthy 
camera, steals with silent steps behind the shelter- 
ing blackberry bush, and from that cowardly fim- 
bush snaps his noiseless weapon at a pair of blush- 
ing lovers plighting, sir, upon a sequestered park 
seat, their sacred troth! And who, sir, but one 
insensible to the screaming voice of propriety, 
selects for his victim a modern Venus as she comes 
rosy and sparkling from the sea, arm in arm with 
her dear but damp Apollo, in gorgeous but classic 
tights? And here I find, sir, another sacrifice to 
your insatiable passion for unhallowed snapshots. 
The sex of the victim, if you were a compassionate 
gentleman, should have turned the eye of your 
camera, sir, in quite another direction. But, sir, 
you had no mercy and spared not. For a frivol- 
ous world to gaze at, you held up this sweet young 
lady bicylist taking a header ! And upon another 
page, sir ’ 

The Judge’s break was caused by a few lines 


82 


Where the Smile Comes In . 


hastily scribbled by my fair counsel, and passed to 
him by an officer of the court. The contents of 
that brief note confused the old lawyer, and his 
lecture ended. Miss Lawyer Portia’s communica- 
tion was this. “ Every picture in your hand I took 
myself !” 

The following day was a rare one for photo- 
graphing, and I worked out my sentence with 
pleasure. I was not to be freed from the sheriff’s 
care until I had made a successful picture of the 
fair ladies of the hotel, grouped upon a side stoop. 
Luck was with me. A village artist developed the 
plate and mounted as many pictures as I would 
pay for. I bestowed one of these on every guest, 
but the Judge. But my picture was, intentionally, 
slightly out of focus. By this defect I got in a 
little revenge on the old lawyer. Just above the 
center of the picture in the background is an open 
window. With a ghostly mask of lather, his big 
nose grasped by forefinger and thumb, his huge 
mouth open as wide as it will go — behold the 
venerable legal gent taking an absorbing shave ! 


Where the Smile Comes In. 83 

When I returned from my long vacation, I made 
a slide from my historic lightning plate. Its merit 
got me into a famous Camera Club. What cared 
I then for the terrible indictment of the rheumatic 
old Judge ! Success at last ! Who is the crank 
now ? 

Later I was surprised one day by a visit of my 
landlady to my studio. She was entertaining no 
longer views highly discouraging to enthusiastic 
amateurs in my line of art. Yes ; up to this time, 
I had considered her as my sworn enemy. Time 
and again had my trunk and myself been danger- 
ously near being bounced from her premises. She 
had, I confess, some slight cause for her rampant 
hostility. Flashlight business had several times 
called the neighboring fire-horses to her house on 
a very lively trot. Her favorite Tabby had failed 
to survive a sampling of a plate-bath. Attic 
lodgers sent for Board of Health officers and the 
sickly odors complained of were positively located 
in the vicinity of my “dark room.” She was not 
long in informing me that now she could trust me 




84 Where the Smile Conies In, 

to aid her in carrying out a scheme that had long 
haunted her brain. 

Her scheme when told was as marvelous to me as 
her sudden conversion to a friendly spirit toward 
my hobby. She desired a large picture, and she 
proposed to call it “ Our Family Thanksgiving 
Dinner.” The guests’ portraits were to be all 
copied from photographs (very old, most of them) 
in her possession. By pasting upon Bristol board 
a woodcut of a long well-loaded table I got my 
foreground. Rising above this table (all bereft of 
lower limbs) were the large family-party. My 
landlady pointed out where each guest should be 
placed, and there they stood as firm and flat as 
paste could hold them. The effect of the copy 
when finished was a rare Anachronistic picture 
indeed. The old father is about to say a blessing 
that all his three wives can hear, for having been a 
foreign missionary he died an oft-married man. 
As his last wife survives him she was considered 
entitled to the place nearest his heart. Of an 
aunt deceased at a ripe old age, my landlady only 


Where the Smile Comes In. 85 

possessed a picture taken in very early childhood. 
Consequently, in a high chair and holding a doll, 
this infant has a place beside her white-bearded 
husband. After contributing her own likeness my 
landlady stumbled upon an old photograph of her- 
self when a baby carried in the arms of a black 
nurse. The group was rather crowded for com- 
fortable knife-and-fork work, so to add this very 
late comer, the waist of the black nurse supporting 
the babe was trimmed and neatly fitted to the 
backcomb of the head of my hostess. This lady 
was highly satisfied with this last arrangement. 
And so she should be, for how few women may 
hope to sit down to turkey and cranberry-sauce, at 
fifty, and yet have her own bald-headed self at six 
months dangerously near grabbing off the wig that 
covers the same head a half century later ? Per- 
haps Charles Lamb might have been pleased with 
such a pat illustration to that “ Other Self ” he 
fondly loved. 

I will here end my confessions by saying, that 
owing to this whim of my landlady’s I had got in 


86 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


debt for a large camera, but, as an off-set, “ The 
Thanksgiving Dinner ” fed and lodged me for one 
consecutive month. 


tV here ihe Smile Comes In . 87 


DID HE GET HER NEGATIVE? 

Active members of our Camera Club have the 
privilege of inviting a friend to its monthly ex- 
hibit of slides. My guest, on one of these occa- 
sions, was a boarding-house chum. The morning 
following, at the breakfast table, my friend, though 
sadly ignorant of the fine points in photographic 
slides, said many nice things about a few of my 
own creation that had passed through the Club’s 
lantern. His remarks were the cause of several of 
our lady boarders expressing the hope that an op- 
portunity might offer by which they might judge 
for themselves of the merit of my work. 

One of the young ladies who urgently joined in 
the request, had, up to a very late date, accom- 
panied me upon several jolly rambles in the coun- 
try, in search of rustic subjects, and for whom I 
held much unspoken admiration. Her desire 


88 Where the Smite Comes In. 

alone would have overcome every objection I might 
have made. More to gratify Miss Clara Marlow 
than even the hungry vanity of an amateur, a night 
was selected for the exhibition, and the Club’s 
lantern secured for the occasion. 

Miss Marlow was our landlady’s niece. She 
came from a small town in one of the Western 
States., intending to perfect herself in art as a 
means for a livelihood, and her later studies 
showed that she had made no mistake in her selec- 
tion of a profession. 

But alas, for me ! this beautiful girl, during the 
past summer, while spending a long vacation 
sketching in the lovely lake regions of Northern 
Jersey, became intimately acquainted with an am- 
bitious young lawyer, who, to rest his overworked 
nerves, visited weekly the same vicinity, with his 
trout-rod. There was so much love of quiet fun 
in Miss Marlow’s disposition that she and I never 
had a grave moment during our short companion- 
ship, or I might have long before spoken what 
lawyer John Sommerfield had already said, though 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


89 


I suspect her answer might have been not near so 
pleasant as that she made to him. Happily, at the 
date of the Slide Show, the wound was seared and 
I had become almost indifferent enough to be 
slightly amiable if chance suddenly threw me into 
the society of the triumphant gentleman, who now, 
I well knew, possessed her entire heart. But it 
was indeed a rough job rigging out a smiling lie, 
when on a certain day this dainty little art student 
coyly imparted to me her engagement, adding, 
“ John wants to become acquainted with you. He 
says that one who showed so much brotherly in- 
terest in my studies, must be the right sort of fel- 
low to know. Oh, I know you will like him, he is 
such a dear old boy.” 

Odd, as it seems, up to the very night of my 
show, not one of Miss Marlow’s fellow-boarders 
had had a close view of her lover. Courtship to be 
carried on in a flourishing boarding-house, as the 
world knows, requires a brave couple indeed. 
Neither Miss Clara nor her young man cared to 
display their deep regard for each other in the face 


90 Where the Smile Comes In, 

of a colony, members of which were in evidence, 
more or less, and at all hours, in the big parlor or 
snug sitting-room. 

Sommerfield’s not over-robust health seemed to 
require a high elevation of his coat collar, and a 
decided pulling down of his big felt hat, when, as 
Miss Clara’s escort, he came within the vicinity of 
their parting place — the lower step of her aunt’s 
dwelling. 

But upon the night of the show all longing curi- 
osity was to be finally appeased, for Miss Clara had 
persuaded her lover to accept the invitation sent 
him. When his presence was assured, my little 
show, I found, was not to stand by itself. The 
young folks of the house had no difficulty in add- 
ing a dance to the programme. From the smok- 
ing-room came, later, a series of resolutions hinting 
that whereas the main feature of the show would cer- 
tainly be Miss Clara’s young man, therefore, be it 
resolved that “a committee of four, appointed by 
the Chair, provide at our mutual expense, music, 
refreshments, and flowers for the ladies ; that we 


Where the Smite Comes In. 91 

may do the thing in good style as a small testi- 
mony upon our part of our deep admiration for 
the charming young lady whose sweet smiles at 
our five o’clock teas have caused lump-sugar to be 
quite superfluous.” 

Yet after all the exciting preparation the play 
was started without a Hamlet. But what scared 
like a ghost was certainly in it, or I would not 
have dared to trot out this mossy simile. The 
startling apparition happened thusly : I had 
reached my very last slide when a telegram from 
the young lawyer was received by Miss Clara. It 
read : “ An invalid client has hastily demanded his 
will for alteration. I am selected to carry it to 
him. Don’t let my leaving the city to-night delay 
your visit to my mother to-morrow. Will connect 
with your train at the Junction near the town in 
which she lives.” 

As I took up the slide from which this story is 
inspired, I had no sooner mentioned the locality 
of the scene when Miss Marlow, who was seated 


9 2 Where the Smile Comes In. 

very near the lantern, observed to me in under- 
tones : 

“ Mrs. Sommerfield has a farm in that neighbor- 
hood. John often rode over from there, on his 
wheel, to the village I was boarding in last summer. 
He was forever praising its lovely glen ; I shall 
probably see it myself, to-morrow, if time allows.” 

Now I am far from being a superstitious man, 
yet at these words of Miss Marlow I was imme- 
diately possessed with a haunting foreboding of 
the nearness of an unhappy sequel of some kind. 
Better for me had the glass in my trembling fin- 
gers broken at that instant into a hundred frag- 
ments. But that slide was my dearest pride. It 
had never been subjected to criticism, but a sure 
artistic instinct told me that few amateurs had 
created its match. My vanity over it was too 
powerful to be resisted. To down these dire fore- 
bodings I had momentarily felt, I struggled, but 
unsuccessfully, to inject into my lecture a few 
apologetic words of comic import. 

“ This slide,” I began, “ I shall nominate : 


Where the Smile Comes In . 93 

Did he get her negative ? It is a tableaux in 
which a very interesting young couple, in the heart 
of a romantic dell, are acting the ‘Old, old story ’ 
— the putting of the solemn conundrum and the 
momentous answer to it. A babbling brook hap- 
pily kept me from overhearing a single word 
uttered. 

“ The morning after this picture was taken I 
breakfasted with an old friend of mine who lodged 
at a boarding-house some distance from my hotel. 
His invitation note was made the more persuasive 
by these words : ‘ I want you to see our dandy 
waitress. She is the daintiest little country beauty 
you could possibly have the fortune to snap at. 
She’s a perfect lady too ; though her hands are 
somewhat broadened by honest work, and it makes 
me rave that I can’t persuade her to sit to me for 
a sketch. A few of these country girls about here 
put on thfe picturesque white cap and pinafore of a 
waitress just in a frolic to have a short summer ac- 
quaintance with city fashion and ways, and others 
to find a market for 4 farrqer father’s fresh eggs 


94 Where the Smile Comes In. 

and cream. It is pleasant to add that not one of 
their even well to-do neighbors think the less of 
them for this voluntary servitude. Nor can you 
imagine how tempting sounds the dry fishball and 
the prosaic hash when the morning’s bil’-of-fare 
containing them is warbled to you by a fresh voice 
full of music. Such our dandy waitress possesses.’ 

“ My artist friend’s rustic beauty,” I continued, 
“ is the heroine of my slide. The discovery of her 
very presence at that breakfast behind my chair 
startled me and interfered somewhat with the 
appetite I usually bring to my morning meal. 
Now, my friends, judge for yourselves if this is not 
indeed a picture of real earnest love-making.” 

It was the proudest moment in my life to hear 
the rattling applause which saluted the clear-cut, 
magnificent picture flashed upon the white screen, 
yet above the flattering racket I was distinctly 
conscious of one short, sharp cry of anguish — a 
woman’s heart had been pierced with the swiftness 
of an arrow. 

When, the chandeliers were relit, Miss Clara 


Where the Smile Comes In. 95 

Marlow's seat was vacant. Her swift exit had 
passed unheeded save by myself, so eager were 
the young people to “ on with the dance ” and the 
elders to escape from the hot room to the locality 
of the cooling drinks and frosty ices. 

I packed up unaided my show materials, but I 
did it mechanically, so overwhelming was my grief 
over the cruel wound the picture on my slide had 
caused the sweet girl, once so very dear to me. 

When I came to the fatal slide I saw that the 
heat of the lantern had completely ruined it. I 
cast its fragments contemptuously beneath a 
wood-fire grate. In spite of the merry music and 
babel of happy voices floating in from the dancing 
room my reflections were but the more sombre. 
Yes, if she had not seen that slide the happiest one 
of that joyful party would have surely been the 
lighted-hearted bride-elect of my rival John Som- 
merfield. Yet tny gloomy reverie was suddenly 
lighted by one fiendish hope, that gleamed up 
from the sparkling glass splinters beneath the fire- 
bars, It was : that it would be 3 very tough job, 


96 Where the Smile Comes In. 

indeed, for a far better lawyer than young Sommer- 
field was reputed to be, to prove an alibi. 

The woman who should know him the best had 
looked upon him, pleading to the pretty farmer’s 
daughter just as he had pleaded to her, and there 
was not a married lady in my audience after the 
first glance at the slide, but who agreed that he 
didn’t get her negative. It pleased me to believe 
that that honest old sleuth, the sun, had recorded 
the scoundrelly scheme of young Sommerfield 
courting successfully two fair women in one short 
summer. And I, the sun’s poor amateur assistant, 
had the weakness to smile over the thought that 
the bewitching Miss Marlow would now promptly 
demand her release from such a vile deceiver. I 
was suddenly checked in this my selfish reverie by 
the presence of a little gloved hand upon my coat 
sleeve ; and a firm voice said : 

“ Don’t you think your pretty tableaux would 
furnish me with a nice study, to be made in water- 
colors ? A glimpse of the scene to-morrow will be 
very important to me in catching local color. I 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


97 


have no doubt but that you have a mounted copy 
that I can take along with me ?” 

Was it possible that I heard Miss Clara speak to 
me these words with a calm voice and smiling lips? 
My poor stumbling hopes would have been utterly 
paralyzed had I not detected a faintly red glow 
on the flesh below her dark eye-lashes, which the 
powder-puff could not hide. Miss Marlow’s peachy 
complexion had but one use for the aid of toilet 
cosmetics, that to hide the recent traces of hot 
jealous tears and their attendant friction. 

“Indeed I have one, Miss Marlow,” I answered, 
“ and it would this very night have gone the way 
of the slide in yonder fire if you had not asked for 
it in time.” 

I hoped she would ask the strange reason of my 
being so ready to destroy the last tface of a picture 
that I doted on and which had won so much ap- 
plause, but never a word spake she. 

The next morning quite early she started for her 
very first visit to her future husband’s relatives, 
carrying with her, in a sealed blue envelope the 


98 Where the Smile Comes In, 

mounted copy I had furnished her. I missed her 
at breakfast by coming down too late, but from 
overheard gossip of the ladies sipping their tea at 
the far end of the long table I found they were dis- 
cussing Miss Marlow. They mutually agreed that 
“ the dread of the prospect of b ing hugged and 
kissed by a future mother-in-law, a perfect stranger 
to her, had caused Miss Marlow to leave them not 
looking her very best, by any means.” 

That day was a public holiday. I had longed for 
its coming to go afield with my camera. I spent 
it in smoking an immense number of pipes and 
sulking to my heart’s content. An afternoon nap 
was ever peopled with Miss Clara and her beau, 
lie at one time shook a club over my head threat- 
ening to annihilate me for depriving him of his 
sweetheart by the work of my kodak ; again I saw 
him in full war-paint haunting my favorite country 
walk, asking every farm lad if he had seen me 
pass ? 

When I unwillingly answered the late dinner- 
bell, at the tabic sat the returned Miss Marlow 


Where the Smile Comes In . 99 

looking, indeed, far happier than I had ever seen 
her. On returning to my room a servant brought 
from her the loaned picture. It had not been 
taken from its sealed envelope ! 

Later in the evening I came down from my attic 
room to take a forced walk. I was putting on my 
overcoat as the street door-bell rang. The servant 
opened the door and announced : “ Mr. Sommer- 

field and brother; callers on Miss Marlow.” 

There was no further mystery to solve now- 
Never before, I veritably believe, had twins grown 
up to manhood so identically alike as John Som- 
merfield and his brother ; and to add to the con- 
fusion they mutually agreed to dress the same. 
Lawyer Sommerfield had for the humor of the 
thing kept all knowledge of this ghost of himself 
from his intended wife. 

“ ‘You must put a tag on John, my dear,’ said 
his mother to me,” Miss Marlow said in detailing 
the old family joke imposed upon her, “ ‘ or some 
day we may see you throwing yourself into son 
Oscar’s arms. That’s the plan followed by the 


lOO 


Where the Smile Comes In, 


pretty daughter of a farm neighbor of ours, to 
know which is her Mr. Sommerfield.’ ” 

Oscar Sommerfield, it seems, from this intelli- 
gence, laughingly imparted to me by Miss Clara, 
didn’t get a negative from his best girl, “ the dandy 
waitress ” of my artist friend. 

I know not to this day if the now Mrs. John 
Sommerfield entertains the least suspicion that I 
know the cruel cost of the ancient joke her hus- 
band’s humor subjected her to. To-day when 
tramping the country with a camera, at my heels 
always follows my fox-terrier with a bell around 
his neck. Its tinkle is loud enough to be heard by 
the most absent-minded of lovers within a wide cir- 
cle. The belling of the dog has certainly worked 
in the interest of farm-owners, if not of sly Mr. 
Cupid. Small boys upon catching the notes of the 
approaching bell, I observe, come down from fruit- 
laden branches much quicker than they ascended. 


Where the Smile Comes In . 


IOI 


A politician’s bank. 

“ A RUSTY safe, a leaky water-cooler and a two 
year old directory are about all the live assets I 
can see in sight after a careful search,” was the re- 
ceiver’s report to the clamorous depositors of Boss 
Jawson’s collapsed Bank. 

Nowhere in the city were comments upon the 
late manager of the ruined institution so freely 
and hotly discussed as in a certain popular saloon 
much favored by the disgraced banker and his poli- 
tical captains. Boss Jawson’s political party, after 
a long wait in the cold, had that year been warmly 
welcomed to power. The Boss worked his pull so 
well as to secure for his insecure bank a large part 
of the city, county and state funds, hitherto dis- 
tributed in neighboring safe financial institutions. 
He had also well-milked the district in which his 
political headquarters were established. 


102 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


This saloon’s proprietor was an honest, thrifty 
Prussian, but very independent as to his political 
bias. He said, to show this: I keeps peer vor 
bublicans and ther tother party, an’ der middle of 
de road fellows too, if day hab bay vor it.” When 
his duties behind his barricade of damp kegs al- 
lowed, Mr. Karl Bungstarter greatly enjoyed a ver- 
bal wrestle with a guest who could master his ob- 
scure English. 

“Veil,” he asked of such a customer, “ vere you 
tink dat money out of de Boss’s Bank all go to ?” 

“ Where the woodbine twineth,” quoted the 
guest. 

“ If you mean Vail Street, den dot is not exactly 
all my opinion. I guess dot de old schap don’t get 
left in haven’ nuttings himself out of all dot gash 
and surblus dot he an’ his gashier swears to every 
times after his pank gits oxamined.” 

“ Perhaps so, Karl, but have you heard that the 
old Boss’s latest scheme didn’t work ?” 

“ By cracious ! dot ole vellow mus’ have a skeem- 
vactory he turns out so many ; put I guess now he 


tV Jure the Smile Comes lu. 163 

Vill keep glear of pankin skeems vor dare is sum 
in dis vard vot vil shurely, shurely make him sick 
of pankin— put vat vos he up to now,- der schly ole 
vox ?” 

“ No sooner did the door of his bank close, than 
the wily old scamp sprints for Washington in hopes 
of getting the receivership. There is money in 
that, you know, but I am told that he got badly 
left.” 

“ Ho ! ho ! der sheek ob dot Boss. Veil, veil, 
dot rnus’ pe goot news vor de boor sucked-in de- 
bositors, don’t youtinkdot? Ho! ho! Receiver 
vor his own pank ? Dot peats der regord ! De 
boliticians of dis gundry run avay vid it all, some 
vine day, if der beoples don’t vake up soon.” 

“ How is it, Mr. Bungstarter, that while so many 
in this district had their last dollar in the Boss’s 
charge, you yourself are not a victim?” 

“ Don’t you beleeve, young veller, dot de Boss 
passes me py vidout a loud call. Oh, yes, he paited 
his hook veil to haul me in. See vot he says. He 
cums in der pack room von day, rings der taple-pell 


104 Where the Smile Comes In. 

loud, and ven I cums in vid his visky — dot’s his 
drink alvays — he smiles and tabs me on der shoul- 
der, and he says: ‘Bung, ole poy, you mus’ be 
rollin’ in velth, put you can stan’ some more 
shtamps yet, I guess? Pull your chair closer, my 
dear ole batriot, I vaunt to talk peesness. Your 



pig hall is empty; that’s a dead loss. Again, der 
law lows no peer to be sold ’lection day. 
More dead loss. Now, your ear leetle nearer, 
brother. Hem, and in a whisper he says, ‘ vait 
until your vife goes out.’ 


Where the Smile Comes In. 105 

“ Excuse me, Boss, says I, my vife an I have no 
peezness of any kind vidout gonsultation.” 

“ Jes so, jes so! Good evening, Mrs. B ■, you 

are looking very well, madam. Nuthin’ bleases me 
more than to see man and vife pull together. 
Putiful examble of the drue vay for married volks 
to brosber. Hem ! I have your good husband’s 
welvare, madam, alvays at heart. Dear me, vy 
hav’ent I noticed before that you are standing, 
madam ? Take this chair. Yes, I like to help 
Karl all I can. Blease close der door, prother 
Karl. Thanks ! Good folks, I mean to git your 
pig hall rented vor ther hull bresidential gambain. 
Yes, from der moment our nomination is made; 
further, this nice large pack room is joost vot ther 
register pord needs ; an on ’lection day, as no 
peer can pe sold, and your good man vill shoorly 
vish to resbect ther law, your saloon vill make a 
nice boilin’ blace. Now listen; ther whole ting is 
managed dis vay. Your worthy huspand obens a 
small agoun': vid my pank. I pass to it vot I 
gollects vrom der Bresidential gampaign gommitte 


106 ll here the Smile Comes lit , 

for hall, back room an boilin' blace. I also allow 
him, as an ole vriend, madan, more indrust dan 
I gibs to any other debositor, vhatever. Put dat 
in strietdes gonvidence, you know. An see here 
vot a nice scheck-pook I have vor Karl. Instead 
of keeping money in der saloon, a risky thing to do, 
madam, till there is enough for der Prewer, you 
send down to der pank, every mornin’ vot you takes 
in der day pefor. When der Prewer comes let 
Karl draw his scheck. But you two dear old 
fashioned volks, of course, don’t know vot a solid 
standin’ in der gommunity a pank agount gives 
beoples. An’, madam, he has such a nople signa- 
ture too, dis worthy huspand of yours ; it’s jes like 
old John Hangok’s on dat Declaration of Inde- 
pendence on der vail, yonder. There’s no charge, 
you understand for check-book ? By the by, 
Karly, old boy, pring in a box of your pest cigars. 
The Directors’ pord meet to-morrow, we all like a 
good schmoke. You shall hab a standin’ order 
vor dem, twice a week.” 

“‘Veil, Katreen,’ says I, ven dose oxbensive 


Where the Smile Comes In. 107 

sigars vos baid vor, ‘ vot you thinks, shall ve put 
our vew schtamps in Meester Jawson’s pank? 
Every poddy say in der vard vot a safe pank dot 
vas.’ 

“ Veil, my vife lays down her knitting an tinks 
hard a pit an den she surbrize me vid vot she tells 
der oily ole Poss : ‘ Meester Jawson,’ says she, me 
and my ole Karl, eber since ve keeb dis saloon know 
put von pank, dots an old shtockin of mine, and I, 
vid his vull gonsent, am der gashier of dat Home 
Pank Oxcoose us, Meester Jawson, dot ve go 
some time more vid dot Home Pank, ain’t it so, 
Karl? I nods my head an’ she dakes up her knit- 
ting an’ says no more. ‘ Vail, dose vords of my 
slimart vife settles dot aebositin peesness at vonce. 
Do you see now, vare my vife’s head vos pig? 
Yes sirree ! put vor her I would hab svallowed dot 
oily rasgal’s tempten pait ; den, vare vould I pe 
to-day ? Boor House, I oxpect. Dough I hab no 
shtamps in dat busted pank yet dot vailure offects 
my peezness some. I dit not tink I had so many 
gustomers vot keeps pank accounts. Dare money, 


io8 Where the Smile Comes In . 

day say, is all died ub in Meester Jawson’s pank. 
So I hab to drust dem ; see dot schlate how vull it 
be ? Vot you tinks, doan ’ some ob dem shaps 
put up a shob on me ? My gracious, vot vants a 
fellow vid a sheck-pook ven he not earns even a 
tollar a day ?” 

“Yes, Bung, some rogues may be playing on 
you the busted bank racket, no doubt of it. But 
you ought to just hug yourself that you, unlike 
many of your neighbors, are not ‘ in the soup,’ as 
the saying is.” 

“ Oxactly. Den dare is a nudder ting dot pank 
vailure prings to my notice. Dot you ’Merican 
peoples take dare skinnen by such rogues as dot 
Boss Jawson vidout much kick. Put it is not so 
vid de mens and womens vrom my gountry. Now 
dare is my putcher down de shtreet. Der Boss 
promises him a pig city gontract to feed vid sheep 
meat de boor house. Great Scott ! how dot put- 
cher rub his pig red hands together as he tells me 
vot joy and velth cum to him vid dot gontract, an. 
he vill go to visit Sharmany on it. Put dot butcher 


Where the Smile Comes In. 109 

never git dot gontract, dough he obens at de 
Boss’s request a pig pank account vid him. De 
Boss tells him ven he kicks to vate vid patience a 
vew veeks till de ole gontract vos out vid anudder 
putcher. You see, zentleman, Meester putcher 
man to-day has no gontract an’ no monies eider. 
Veil, how you tinks dot man an’ his vife pein’ a 
Sharmans dakes dat shwindle? Veil, I vill tell 
you. Ven de news cum to dot putcher, he runs to 
de pank just as de pig doors are shlammed in his 
face. Veil, he kums home, dot putcher, and he 
oils up his bistol, he gleans his gun, he sharpens 
his sword — he vos a vine soldier, an' vought vid 
me under General Hooger — den he gets a pig 
glub vor his vife an’ der two dus armed goes to 
dat vine new house vot der Boss lives in. Of 
course, dey do not vind him at home. ‘ Veil, den,’ 
says dot ole soldier, ‘ Vife, ve vill joost gamp on 
derdDremises until he gums home.’ Veil, he ment 
peezness dot ole vetren an’ vood not move avay 
ven told. So de Boss’s vife telephones to der 
bolice and der bolice gaptain cum in der batrol 


i io Where the Smile Comes In . 

vagen. Dot officer say, ‘ Gomrade (dot bolice 
gaptain vos an’ ole soldier, too) deres only vomen 
volkes in dis house, der Boss is not here I am cer- 
tain. Now, you an’ Misses vill certainly get der 
rheumatics gamben on dis grass plot all night, an’ 
vor weeks, berhaps, vaitin’ for Mr. Jawson. Dot 
vill be pad vor you, gomrade ; you ain’t der boy 
you vos at Schancellorsville. Put you must give 
me your gun, gomrade, cum, I’ll do all I can to 
help git your money pack. Fightin’ vor your pay 
in war ain’t ther shtyle of fightin’ allowed vor your 
bay in beace. You must take der law on him, 
gomrade, as other volks hab to do.’ Veil, dot 
bolice gaptain had to take dot mad putcher an’ his 
vife to de station house, dey vos so determined to 
shoot de Boss at sight, an’ dey vos put py the 

judge under heavy ponds jost dot dis d d ras- 

gol of a Boss may hab no vear of his brecious 
pones peen proken by dem whose life an’ fortune 
he had ruined. Believe me, my vind zentlemen, no 
pond to keep der beace vill save der Boss from der 
tongue lushin’ dot mad putcher’s vife vill shoorly 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


i 


dreat him to ven der neighbors give dot lady, as 
day bromise to do, a tib dot he is in her neighbor- 
hood. All der bunishment de law vill gib de 
Boss vill hurt him no more dan de ox is hurt pi a 
binch on his horn. But dot mad putcher voom- 
an’s tongue ! No law vill save him from dot — ” 

The sudden break in the old landlord’s gossip 
was caused by his watchful eye following a new 
guest noiselessly opening a side-door and as 
stealthily disappearing into the retirement of the 
saloon’s back room. 

In response to the feeble tap of a bell the land- 
lord without consulting his back room guest, took 
up a certain black bottle and a glass, and as he 
passed the gentleman he had so lately talked with, 
there was a very knowing wink exchanged between 
the two. 

After a short interval given to his mysterious 
guest, the landlord returned to the public room. 
He was about to resume his interrupted chat with 
his former companion, when his wife beckoned 
Jiim aside. The whispered information she gave 


I 2 


Where the Smile Comes In, 


caused the husband to quickly impart it to the 
mysterious occupant of the rear room. 

The back-room guest uttered not the slightest 
word of remonstrance when he was very energeti- 
cally assisted out of a rear window by his host. 
But he did express a few hot and unchristianlike 
epithets when dropped under the window so near 
a bull-dog’s kennel that he was forced to relinquish 
the skirts of his black frock-coat, and no doubt 
the scaling of a picketed ten-foot fence, and the 
unexpected dousing into a stagnant duck pond 
caused still hotter exclamations to warm the sur- 
rounding air. 

Now, this solid gentleman, sprinting for dear 
life in all the roaring shame of a tailless coat, was 
the s^dly persecuted political banker, and he was 
fleeing from the one solitary terror his evil ways 
could possibly bring upon him, the nimble tongue 
of an excited middle-aged female victim, the plun- 
dered butcher’s wife, who was close upon his trail. 

Boss Jawson for a long time after was supposed 
to be still fleeing from the wrath of the mad 


W here the Smile Comes Iri. 11.3 

butcher’s lady, and had probably put the ocean 
between them. That the public thought so was 
strongly hoped by a certain very respectable look- 
ing colored gent doing much white-washing and 
fence-repairing about the ample grounds of the ele- 
gant Jawson villa. 

i So short even is the memory of folks that have 
been most brazenly robbed, that it was scarcely six 
months before this workman with a black face felt 
it entirely safe to remove his burnt cork disguise 
aqd, nothing daunted, was quite ready to resume 
business again in guiding the moneyed affairs of his 
countrymen. But not at the old stand, however. 
Patriotic Mr. Jawson’s financial services to his 
sweetly amiable countrymen were for the future 
exclusively in the political line. Manipulating 
(with sticky fingers perhaps) campaign funds and 
lobby boodle was less liable to a check, the Boss 
hoped, than investing bank deposits in wild-cat 
land schemes of his own devising. Besides, and it 
was certainly an advantage, there was sure freedom 
from tongue-lashings from exasperated female 
victims, 


Where the Smile Comes In . 


114 


MRS. VAN DYKE BROWN. 

Mr. Van Dyke Brown, after a lucky stroke in 
stock speculation, resolved to retire from Wall 
street and enjoy his fortune. 

1 

“ If I keep on speculating on the Street,” he ob- 
served to his wife, “ the boys,” (meaning his broker 
friends) “ will not give me a moment’s rest until 
they have back every penny of my winnings. As 
we have no children, I guess that we two can worry 
through the rest of our lives on eight or ten thou- 
sand a year.” 

“ Oh, my dear Vannie,” responded his affection- 
ate lady, “ now I see my way to a real triumph. I 
only wanted money to do it. It is to have a picture 
gallery — one that will contain such gems of art as 
only a real artist can gather.” 

“ And who is the artist you will trust with gath- 
ering together these gems, my dear ?” 


Where the Smile Comes In, 1 15 

Here Mrs. Van Dyke Brown, with eyes flashing 
with excitement suddenly disappeared from her 
husband’s presence and as quickly returned with a 
small bit of canvas. After lighting every burner 
of the parlor chandelier and putting the picture in 
the best light, she took her Vannie by the left ear, 
pulled him out of his easy chair, and led him up to 
behold the wonderful creation. 

“ Ain’t it upside down, my dear ?” asked the art- 
less husband. 

“ Oh, the stupid Vannie. Don’t you see that it 
is a bit of still life ? A salt mackerel — see its steel- 
hued scales glistening with the dewy drops of crys- 
tulizing brine. Though I painted it at boarding- 
school thirty years ago, it must have had a great 
deal of merit in it, for Professor De Daubs, our 
drawing master, said in the best English he could 
command, ‘ My dear Mees, dot mackerel is vinely 
done ; every loafer of de vine arts must say so.”’ 

“ Perhaps he was a loafer in fine arts himself,” 
remarks her dear Vannie. 

But Mrs. Van Dyke Brown was not to be sat 


1 1 6 Where the Smile Comes In . 

down upon by a sarcastic remark from an ex-Wall 
Street broker — husband though he be. 

Shortly after, a long art gallery was added to 
the Van Dyke mansion, and the bank checks of 
her dear Vannie were in constant demand in ex- 
change for bits of unframed canvases brought care- 
fully to the house by pale-faced gentlemen with 
unkempt beards and broad-brimmed hats. 

As Mrs. Van, with her dear Vannie in tow, was 
sauntering up and down the well-lighted art gallery, 
Mrs. V. remarks : 

“ Oh, it does relieve me so to talk fine arts in- 
stead of empty gossip to my numerous lady visitors. 
Then it’s so elevating ! You see I have a mission 
now, Vannie dear.” 

The talk with her lady visitors that Mrs. Van 
Dyke Brown had now exchanged for empty gossip 
sounded something like this : 

“ That picture, my dear Miss Pugmeyer, is a fine 
example of the famous French painter, Count de 
Sneezy, of the Paris Salon' of 1890. It is styled 
‘ The Backslider.’ Will you not confess how true 


Where the Smile Comes In . 117 

to Nature is the skin of the treacherous banana 
lying on the sidewalk ? Perhaps a very captious 
critic might object to the foreshortening of the 
tripped-up old gentleman’s left leg, but there cer- 
tainly is immense genius in the painting of the 
scowl on the face of the enraged old gent as, lying 
on his back, he shakes his blue cotton umbrella at 
the mischievous boy hiding behind the solemn- 
faced Italian at the fruit stand. As the Count is 
a painter almost exclusively of religious subjects, 
the moral of the ‘ Backslider ’ I infer is to show 
what may happen to us all in our daily walks, and 
how guarded we should be of the language that 
might spring to our lips on meeting a similar ex- 
perience to that of this unfortunate old gentle- 
man.” 

“Ah. I knew that ‘ 441-44 ’ would hold you 
enchanted. My dear Miss Pugmeyer, it is by our 
famous American painter, Snooks. Yes, that is 
his original ‘ City Boarders in the Country.’ Could 
anything be more natural than the purple of the 
pinched nostrils and the soft blue tinge on the 


1 1 8 Where the Smile Comes In. 

parted lips of the white-faced, shivering girl in the 
hammock, as her lover with shaky hand drops into 
her mouth a five-grain quinine capsule ! How de- 
liciously this great artist bathes the whole land- 
scape in an aroma of malaria and dampness. The 
heavy ulster of the lover worn over his airy tennis 
suit ; the sealskin sack and the light Swiss dress 
and low slippers of the maiden, — what a glorious 
combination of warmth and coldness, shade and 
sunshine! Here, take my magnifying glass, for 
with it you can read on the lid of the empty pill- 
box that has fallen on the grass, ‘ Bolus, Hygeia 
Ave.’ Yes, a very careful artist is Snooks. Like 
his great contemporary, Messionier, he is wonder- 
ful in his details. 

" Now here is something by a local artist ; I keep 
it in a corner. It is one of my husband’s offsets 
to a bad debt. The scene is very near home. It 
is styled ‘ A Winter Morning at the Railroad Sta- 
tion.’ You see the steam of the approaching en- 
gine. The steep hillside glistens with ice. The 
temptation of delaying too long over a hot buck- 


Where the Smile Comes In. lie) 

wheat cake breakfast has caused several of the 
passengers to come down the hill a little too fast, 
Yonder to the right is a silk hat hustling along far 
in advance of its wearer : the bundle of clothing 
surmounted by a pair of boots decorating a thorny 
bush to the left, tells the story of one passenger 
who will miss his traih. The gent prone in the 
foreground at the foot of the hill is sure to trip up 
the half dozen others sliding helplessly in his wake. 
And can you not hear the scream of the young 
lady gliding helplessly into the embrace of the 
only self-possessed gentleman on the scene ?” 

But enough of Mrs. Van Dyke Brown’s artistic 
talk. The draft on the stockbroker’s purse before 
one side of the walls of the picture gallery was 
covered caused her dear Vannie to put an embargo 
on further purchases. 

“ Well,” said Mrs. Van D., “ if I can’t buy pic- 
tures. I know I can make them,” and wasn’t there 
the salt mackerel to bear testimony to her words ? 

This resolve made her husband happy for a time. 
But it was but a brief respite. Mrs. Van D. dur- 


I 20 


Where the Sniile Conies In. 


ing the winter painted only historical pictures, and 
she seized upon Vannie as her model. One day 
poor Vannie fell sick of the mumps. Being a 
rather fat-faced man the mumps added an outline 
to his lower jaw that made the poor fellow’s face a 
holy horror. Turning weariedly his aching and 
swollen features to his wife with eyes longing for 



sympathy, judge of his astonishment when his lady, 
with a look of radiant delight, burst out with: 

“ What a face for my Goliah !” 


Where the Smile -Comes In. 1 2 1 

When he recovered from the mumps she painted 
his face in miniature for a locket for herself. 
When that was finished she borrowed a suit of 
clothes from an Italian and made Van Dyke Brown 
pose in them for a ten by eighteen feet picture in 
oils, meant for the spring exhibition of the Acad- 
emy of Design. The features of the uncouth 
tramp in the foreground spurning lead-colored 
buckwheat cakes from a servant girl at a kitchen 
window, has a very striking likeness to the face in 
the cherished locket set in diamonds and worn by 
Mrs. V. D. on full dress occasions. 

When summer came poor Vannie was loaded 
with camp-stools, easels and paint-boxes, and 
meekly followed Mrs. V. D. on long tramps along 
the banks of the river or toward the neighboring 
mountain range. School children often mistook 
the party for an organ-grinder and his wife, for 
certainly the palette which Mrs. Van carried sug- 
gested a tambourine. 

< One sultry afternoon, after sketching in a 
meadow a distant view of the wooded hills, Mrs. 


i22 Where the Smile Comes In. 

V. D. desired her amiable Vannie to furnish her 
with a cow or two for the foreground of her 
sketch. As the day was warm and the gentleman 
very fleshy, he determined to hurry up the hillside 
to the vicinity of his wife as speedily as possible 
two very meek-looking cows cropping the grass at 
the bottom of the meadow. As corpulent gentle- 
men on hot days are generally very excitable 
when disturbed at their ease, Mr. V. D. Brown 
applied his stick with so much energy that up the 
lulls the two beasts trotted so very lively that they 
did not stop even for Mrs. V. D.’s easel and large 
canvas. Realizing too late how imprudently he 
had acted, Mr. V. D. B. was almost paralyzed. 
But he was relieved at beholding a pair of black 
silk stockings swing over the top-rail of a fence 
and the foremost of the cows prancing along the 
meadow with a framed canvas stuck upon her 
horns. 

Mrs. V. D. was safe. As a tribute to her faith- 
ful portraiture of grass the heifer took to eating 
the unfinished landscape. The cow belonged to 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


123 


the herd of a milkman. No wonder that the next 
day a great many of his patrons were stricken 
with the painter’s colic. 


124 


Where the Smile Comes In . 


REV. DR. EBONY’S JUBILEE DISCOURSE. 

At the Eboneezer Chapel on Snow Street, Rev. 
Dr. Ebony, pastor, there was held a grand jubilee. 
The Eboneezer flock had paid off the last cent due 
on a long-standing mortgage and the black lambs 
were skipping with joy and their woolly-pated 
elders were grinning merrily. 

Their shepherd had an idea that a few sharp 
criticisms as to certain means resorted to in gather- 
ing in the wherewith that had wiped out the grind- 
ing debt, and of which, at the time, he had ques- 
tionable doubts as to their appropriateness, from a 
clerical point of view, would get a much better 
hearing now that his followers were in such rare 
good-humor. 

Closing the book and pushing it out of danger, 
in case it should through much excitement on his 
part be toppled upon some woolly pate in the front 


Where the Smile Comes In. 1 2 5 

seats ; and then taking an exhaustive pull at his 
pulpit water supply, the 
good doctor felt quite pre- 
pared to get down to his 
long-smothering desire : 

“ Bruderen, we hab reach- 
ed victory after a long and 
terruble fight. We hab 
poultry to show how hard it 
am for church folks at all 
times to rake in de stamps. 

It am well expressed in 
dees two lines: : 

“ * De fifties and de twenties go for payenoff de rent. 

But heabin and de organ-grinder gits de copper cent.’ 

To reach de happy port we am to-night arrived 
at, you, my belubbed, ’riginated more financial 
schemes dan a busted Wall Street broker could 
tink of to sot himself on his laigs agin. Let us 
trabbel back, to sum ob dem and view dem coolly 
now de heat of battle am all ober. Perhaps some 



126 Where the Smile Comes In, 

ob dem schemes will now strike you as not worth 
taken out a patcrn for. 

“ Yes, indeed, belubbed, it was fierce fighten all 
de way ; yet dere was but one life los’. Let us 
drop a big tear for dat unfortuuate one. I refer, 
bruderen, to young Hannabull Columbus Snyder. 
He was a hero in dat fight an’ to p’int a moral 
from his sacrifice I mus’ recall his sad story. At 
de very last’ festival gibben by de ladies of dis 
yere chu’ch, young Han arrived hungry and early; 
but so pleaden’ were de ladies dat run de ’fresh- 
ment tables near de do’r dat it was late in de 
ebenin’ when dis youth fotched up at de bake bean 
counter ob his best girl. For, tamperin’ wid de 
appetite ob dat young man to de extent dat de 
young ladies by de do’ did, caused to flow dees 
cruel saluten’ words from de lips of Han’s sweet- 
heart : ‘Mr. Hannabull Columbus Snyder, arter 
picnicken’ at ebery ’freshment table in de room, 
you cums sneaken’ at de ’lebenth hour to me who 
am runnin’ dis bake bean counter ; an’ you cums 
chuck full to de bery collar button. Wid appetite 


Where the Smile Comes In. 127 

gone an’ money too, I hab no doubt, what furder 
use, Han, am you to me, in my ambition to win de 
ring offered by de westry to de church sister who 
collars de mos’ stamps at dis yer’ supper. Oh 
Hanny, dear, how could you treat your steady so 
cruel ? Wow ! wow !’ 

Wid dees las’ laments Han’s best girl bust into 
tears and Han was all broke up wid grief and 
’morse ober his neglect ob his sweetheart’s first 
claims on his puss an’ his appetite. When tings 
looked to Hanney as if she was sure to gib him de 
cold shake, den it was dat he braced himself up 
an’ showed de fust-class hero stuff in him. Wid a 
voice throwen out signs of cornin’ appleplexy, he 
whispers : 

“ ‘ Set ’em up ! Miss Gerusha ; a whole big pan- 
ful if you like. Ebery blessed bean ob dem you 
will see me walk away wid, if I don’t bust in de 
’tempt.’ 

Too late, too late, Mr. Snyder,’ she moaned, 

‘ I know too well dat nuthen you kin do now wid 
yer wasted appetite will count in eaten off de big 


128 


Where the Smile Comes In, 


church debt. Fool was I to set a store on what I 
hear ’bout your eaten ’parities, for dey tell me 
dat when de Dutch baker’s cart was run away 
with an’ upsot afore your mammy’s door, no cham- 
pion pie-eater ebber did what you did. I forget 
’zactly how many hot pies you rastled ’cesfully 
wid— but de number was monstrus. De youth as 
did sich wonders wid his mouf, says I, is my own 
’tentive beau, an’ for lub of me he will most eat 
up de hull church mortgage, an’ here at my own 
table too ; but, alas ! poor confiden’ me ! no such 
happy vision am I to realize. Alas ! alas ! my 
faithless lubber hab fallen by de wayside, tempted 
by dem sharp sirens near de do’, an’ day hab 
shorn him, I am sure, ob scrip as well as any de- 
sire for beans. Wow ! wow!’ ’Gain and ’gain did 
de distressed young champen pie-eater eloquently 
plead for mercy an’ forgiveness, an’ finally his 
Jerusha relents ; but her consent showed plain dat 
it carried its full price. Jes’- harken to de words 
ob de cruel contract: ‘Now listen to me, Mr. 
Snyder; down your mouf goes dis hull pan ob 


Where the Smile Comes In. 129 

beans, plate by plate, each ten cents worth meas- 
ured accurately by de standard sot by de ladies’ 
committee ; odderwise, Mr. Snyder, dis night I 
sends back all yo’r gifts to me, an’ you an’ I, 
Mr. Snyder, ebber after will be strangers to each 
udder and not eben will I say, ‘ Mr. Snyder, I’ll be 
a sister to you. Dare, Mr. Snyder, dat am de 
worden’ ob de work cut out for you to do to git 
back into yer ole place in my ’fections. Believe 
me, Mr. Snyder, I’ll not take back a letter of it — 
you hear me, Mr. Snyder?” 

“‘Set ’em up, Jerush,” was his plucky reply. 
Yea, he did and to his early ebnin’s hebby work 
all to a bean dot was asked ob him as his only 
step-ladder to climb back to his lub’d one’s ’fec- 
tions. Accorden’ Miss Jerusha’s testimony fore 
de coroner’s jury it took eighteen ten-cent plates 
of bake beans to win him his best girl’s forgibness 
an’ later a golden harp. 

“ Now, belubbed sisters, doan’t none of you be 
inclined to kick dat de trustees ob dis church, wid 
de fate of young Han befor’ dem, hab, at my re- 


1 30 Where the Smile Comes In. 

quest, ’cided, ’nanimously dat at all fucher ladies’ 
church suppers, dat de extreme limit ob persua- 
sion to be ’plied ’to young men who are held up by 
young females runnin’ de ’freshment tables, shall 
be : Firstly, as to clam and oyster stews, ten 
plates ; secondly, as to beans, eight plates. Dis 
tariff am based ’pon keerfully gathered medical 
sticktics as to de average safe limits ob de civilized 
African normal stomach w’en loaden’ cargoes of 
de aforesaid foods. So no more ‘ eaten stunts’ 
shall there be even if dis church gits as poor as an 
Italian’s horse. 

“ Next I cums to our strawberry fes’val. Hit has 
always been de proud boast of de Eboneezer folk 
dat dare chapel beat all de udder meetin’-houses 
in dis city wid de fust lit transparency leadin’ to a 
strawberry festival. Dat troublesome mortgage is 
wid us no more. We darefore, bredren, can’t on 
de next ’casion fall back on de ole excuse for 
rushen’ in dem festivals far, far in ’vance of de 
season. Never again need de good ladies ob dis 
£hurch dye green berries wid cheap candy col’reiq 


Where the Smile Comes In . 1 3 1 

which pious trick played by dem was how de odder 
churches git left so badly. Hereafter, bredren, 
we’ll be patient and wait for de good hot sun just 
to git in his own col’ren work. We will save on 
sugar an’ run no risk ob bein’ ’dieted by de Board 
of Health. I assure you, bredren, dat dare was 
but little money coinin’ to us from our las’ straw- 
berry festival. De bes’ part ob de ’ceipts had to 
be spent in peppermint lozengers for de infant 
class ob de Sunday school, an’ in Jamaky ginger 
an’ fixin’s for your pasture an’ his elders. 

“ Lastly, belubbed, doan’ let dare be any more 
ob dat grab-bag business. Let me ’lustrate, bred- 
ren, by what I see wid my own eyes ob de sorrow 
dey brought to some of our innercent pecaninnies, 
dem lubly sweet chocolate cherubs ob de infant 
class. De precious little lam’s, holen tight dare 
few coppers, flock in droves to de matinee ob one 
ob our church fairs wid a grab-bag attachment. 
In dare search for de bes’ penny inwestments in 
de show dey was all gathered in by ven’rable Sis- 
ter Dusenberry, who was bossin’ at de time one ob 


132 Where the Smile Comes In. 

dem fake grab-bags. Sister Dusenberry wid de 
voice ob an ole sireen wables ‘ Will de blessed ’ittle 
honnies try dare luck? Only one ’ittle penney, 
honnies ; dat cheap, shoreley.’ To dis pleadin’ ob 
our aged Sister, one tot, Mosey Jackson, invested 
his copper forchune and got fust chance at de 
fishen’. Well, he dove into de big bag so deep 
dat you could only see de new patched heels ob 
his leetle boots. When after a spell Sister Dusen- 
berry haled him to de bag top, little Mosey showed 
for his fishin’ luck a bundle quite as large as him- 
self. Now what got Mosey, think you, belubbed, 
in dat big haul he landed with difficulty? I’ll tell 
you — jes’one little lone gord-forsaken peppermint- 
drop ! He had been deceived, dat only two-foot 
high Christian lam’, by the fourteen Sunday news- 
papers dat it war wrapped in. He had froze on to 
dat deceptive bundle ’cause it looked like a dis- 
guised watermelon. 

“ Oh ! my belubbed, I kin hear ringin’ in my 
ears now dat sorroful wail ob poor, deceived little 
Mosey. I felt so much sympathy for de little cuss 


Where the Smile Comes In . 133 

dat I had no heart to whack him with my cane at 
what I seed him do later. What odderwise I’d 
hab shingled him for was dis : After shedden’ 
many hot tears in de punch-bowl dat held de 
penny lemonade, Mosey he braces up from dat bad 
fishin’ luck in de grab-bag an’ determined to git 
his los’ copper worth back again. So when his 
Aunt Judy’s broad back was turn, Mose helps 
himself to all de creem dat mouth like his would 
hold. An’ I surely beli’ve before he drapped de 
cubber of de freezer, Mose had got away wid, an 
widdout settlin’ for it, ’nuf cream to run a small 
restaurant on a hot Fourth of July. Now, let 
me say to all de black kids in dis big congrega- 
tion, an’ Mosey himself, dat stealin’ ain’t de right 
way to git eben wid de grab-bag swindlers. 
Dat ain’t de way dat George Washington or King 
Solomon would hab settled de grab-bag swindlers 
ob dare day and generashum. De next’ time, 
boys, dat any ob our church festivals you tink you 
ain’t got your pennyworth, jes’ sprint for de place 
where you see your belubbed pasture sotten — gen* 


1 34 Where the Smile Comes In. 

erally at de fried chicken stand. He’ll ’vestigate 
your complaints at once, an’ if true, den he will 
confixtycate de hull stock in de grab-bag as 
promptly as Mr. Comstock would collar de boodle 
of de green-goods man. 

“ Now, belubbed, haben’ ’spressed openly my 
displeasure as to certain feachures ob dem past 
’ttainments I hope dat no bredren or sister will 
tink it’s ’bout time my salery was reduced an’ my 
many years ’luded to. Dat’s de modern way 
churches hab of hitten’ back at a pasture who gibs 
unwelcome advice straight. No, belubbed, I hope 
better things of you. I see dat de choir am im- 
patient to be let loose on de Jubilee hymn, so I 
let ’em hab der way an’ do you all jine in hearty, 
for you hab good cause to rej’ice. 


Where the Smile Comes In . 


i 


JD 


FIRST NIGHT IN A NEW HOME. 

Lady of the HOUSE : The Heavens be thanked 
that the last load has arrived and is unpacked. 
What a day this has been of anxiety, vexation and 
hard work. And what a scene is this about me ! 

* £4 7 

Every room in the house looks like a dock' after 
the arrival of a freight boat. If I move again I 
vow it shall be nowhere but to a cemetery. And 
here is nightfall, and not abed made or a stove set 
up ; and where to lay my hand for a single cup or 
plate to set out the supper-table, blessed if I know. 
I feel like a female Robinson Crusoe with a little 
of everything from the wreck about me. But the 
very first thing, of course, is a cup of tea for my 
husband. The dear, good man ; what a time he is 
having with the kitchen stove-pipe. I must close 
the register for fear of hearing any of those awful 
words that a stove-pipe too big for the hole in the 


136 Where the Smile Comes In. 

chimney always will provoke in the best of men. 
If I recollect rightly, the tea-caddy is at the bottom 
of one of those seven 
tightly-packed barrels yon- 
der ! And the sugar ! 
Let — me — think ; where 
did I put the sugar ? I fear 
I must give it up. As to 
the spoons, I know well 
enough where they are. 
In the shoe-bag, of course. 
Being silver I supposed 
that a shoe-bag was the 
safest place for them. 
But where is that shoe-bag ? And the loaves 
of fresh bread baked yesterday in the old house 
so as to keep us in bread ’till we got some- 
what to rights ? Now, I have a very faint impres- 
sion that I wrapped those loaves of bread in the 
ironing-blanket and stowed them and a cold ham in 
— in — in — oh, if I only had time to think I could 
put my hands right on them, but there’s that im- 



Where tJie Smile Comes In. 1 3 7 

patient husband of mine, hollerin’ to me again. 
“ Cornin’, my dear, just wait one moment.” What 
is that heaped up in yonder corner ? Well! if it 
isn’t the hired girl’s iron bedstead, that I gave such 
particular instructions to the men to carry up to 
the little third story back room. Now I daresay 
that those same men have tugged the refrigerator 
up into the attic. There’s John’s yell again. He 
has at last the stove ready to light, for he is scream- 
in’ for a match. Oh, there’s lot’s of ’em some- 
where. But he must give me time to think. The 
worst of movin’ is, it tempts men folks to break the 
third Commandment. Why, the words he’s usin’ 
in his delirium for matches, are hot enough to light 
a fire without ’em. “ Yes, dear, I’m huntin’ every- 
where for ’em.” Where did I put ’em so as to 
have them to my hand ? I’m sure there’s a toilet 
match-safe in the top-drawer of yonder sideboard. 
Just my luck ; the drawer is locked. Now where 
is the key? Dear me, if there ain’t a hole right 
through the canvas of that oil painting over there. 
Let me examine it. How very fortunate it is 


1 3 & Where the Smile Comes In. 

only the portrait of John’s first wife. With one 
eye gone and a long crack across the nose, surely 
John will not think of hanging it up in the dining- 
room again, where, for ten years past, it has had its 
eyes steadfastly set on me at every meal. I’ve always 
held that when a man takes a second wife, his first 
wife’s portrait ought to be given to the first wife’s 
relatives. I only tolerated it because it wasn’t the 
least like her, and was a hundred times better look- 
ing than she ever dared to be. W hat’s that crash 
upstairs ? I do believe it’s that clumsy Bridget 
tryin’ to move John’s heavy bookcase by herself. 
Well, I suppose I must give up the hunt for those 
matches. John must go next door and borrow a 
few. They look like nice folks, and we shall want 
their milkman to serve us. I suppose he’ll kick 
just because he’s got stove-polish on his hands and 
face, and hain’t got his store clothes on. Dear me, 
how particular that man is — a married man, too — 
over a little errand like that on a movin’ day, jes’ 
because there’s good-lookin’ young ladies livin’ 
next door. Gracious heavens ! What a pile of 


Where the Smile Comes In. 139 

dirt the folks that moved out have left behind 
them for me to clean up. And see those rows of 
carpet tacks left in the floor. I know too well it 
was a man that took up their parlor carpet ; took 
hold of a corner and jes’ yanked it up by main 
force. Ketch a man gittin’ down on his knees and 
taking a deep interest in each individual tack as a 
woman would. So there is where their sofa sot ! 
I can read that plainly by the straight, dull horizon 
of hair-grease dead’ning the gilt wall-paper. Young 
men with oily heads would save a great deal of 
trouble to housekeepers, I am thinkin’, if they called 
in night-caps. I see what that line of hair-grease 
means for me ; I’ll have to go down on my bended 
knees to the landlord to get this room newly- 
papered. There’s that yell of that husband of 
mine for the hundredth time. To think of any 
civilized bein’ makin’ a row about a missing coal- 
scuttle after a day like this ! All I can say is that 
it was in the fourth barrel that came in the third 
load. Does he suppose I’m to leave off gettin’ 
supper to find a coal-scuttle? Well, I suppose I 


140 Where the Smite Comes In. 

must, or he’ll be bringin’ up coal from the cellar in 
my patent ice-pitcher. I’ll just call Emeline to set 
this table and then go to John. 

Miss Emeline : Ma may yell till the cows come 
home, but I’m bound to have my curls in order 
before I go down stairs, even if it is movin’ day. 
Dear me, what a labor it is fixin’ one’s hair with a 
lookin’ glass at one’s feet ! but then, dear Augus- 
tus is sure to be here to-night. Young folks expect- 
in’ to start housekeepin’ very soon should know 
somethin’ about this evil of movin’. Oh, how sick 
of movin’ I’ll make him. I’ll set him at hangin’ 
pictures or to helping pa move the piano. Oh ! I 
do hope that he will have the presence of mind to 
stop at the drug-store and load up with caramels, 
for I don’t see as there’s a possibility of there bein’ 
anything nice to eat in this new house for the next 
twenty-four hours. To think there is but one chair 
in the parlor ! But he won’t mind sharing that, I 
guess. If he does, he’ll have to put up with a seat 
on the step-ladder. Of course he’ll come, for he’s 


Where the Smile Comes In. 14 1 

so broken to the habit of coming every night that 
I don’t believe that the fact that we have just 
moved in will keep him away. Then pa and ma 
are awful tired, they’ll want to retire early, and 
won’t that be nice ? But how will he know when 
it’s time to go ? for no one in the house can find 
the pendulum of the parlor clock! Dear me, how 
movin’ does interfere with folks that’s engaged. 
To-morrow night we will see if Augustus is good 
at puttin’ down a parlor carpet. For the sooner 
that’s done the sooner we shall have somewhere to 
sit away from the old folks. 

The Man of the House: Where in thunder 
have you women folks stowed my pipe ? I suppose 
no one thought of tellin’ the paper carrier where 
to leave my newspaper. Where did I find this 
slipper ? Why, in the cake-box. Who knows 
where the mate to it is ? Well, if I could but find 
my pipe I’d manage to be comfortable with a slip- 
per on one foot and an arctic on the other. Now, 
don’t tell me that you don’t know where the cork- 


142 


Where the Smile Comes In . 


screw is ! I say, you women-folks, leave everything 
and hunt for my Derby ; I can’t wear this old white 
tile to the city to-morrow. Who wears white hats 
out of season? Yes, I know that everything is 
upside down and you are all worn out. Well, then, 
never mind hunting for a glass. My mouth will 
just hold one good swallow when I have to take 
whiskey plain. Don’t shake your head and look 
so glum, missus ! Did I ever ask for the whiskey 
except when lobsters are in season or movin’ day 
comes around ? 

Small Boy of the House : Where am I to 
sleep ? Say, tell me, some one. Oh, ain’t I glad 
that my old tooth-brush and the blackin’ box can’t 
be found ! I say, sis, I did have jes’ ther bulliest 
time on your roller skates before the first load 
come. Had the bare floors of the hull lower house 
fer a skatin’ rink. Now, don’t tell pop about my 
puttin’ a foot through the glass door in the back 
hall. If yer do, I’ll knock yer beau’s new silk hat 
off ther hat-stand the fust chance I get and smash 


Where the Smile Comes In. 143 

it flat as a pancake. I say, I seed the man who so 
keerfully moved us, walk all along ther top of 
yer piano to get to his horses. Oh, I say, mother, 
do tell me where I’m to sleep. I suppose I can 
give the public school the bounce all the rest of 
the week. Oh, ain’t movin’ bully fun ! Won’t I 
have a picnic, though, with the jar of currant jelly 
I cabbaged out of the first load. I say, sis, don’t 
be mad with me, but ther only w r ay I could fetch 
ther cat from ther old house was to-tie her up in 
the box with your new bonnet. Oh, I’m so sleepy, 
do tell me, some one, where I’m to roost. 


144 


Where ike Smile Comes In, 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM THE FAR WEST ON FEMALE 
EDUCATION. 

Madame La Fountaine’s Young Ladies’ 
Academy was conducted upon high-toned lines 
exclusively. The late Monsieur La F. had worked at 
the trade of a roving diplomat. The many court- 
balls he was obliged to dance at, chass£ed away all 
his wife’s fortune and his own health, which latter 
possession was the only property at the time he 
could prove a title to. Deportment in all its ex- 
acting and elegant branches, was the task the 
widow, who also had danced at many court-balls, 
imposed upon herself. The other teachers were 
transcendentalists to the core, and all hailed from 
Boston. This was the kind of polishing-school 
that the wives of the newly-rich desired for their 
daughters. The programme for a certain graduation 
day ended, as usual, with a Latin valedictory. Th^ 


Where the Smile Comes In . 145 

attention the majority of the audience gave it, and 
the many times they interrupted with applause, 
caused an elderly gentleman in the crowd to ob- 
serve : “How well up in classic cult you smart 
Easterners are ! Blest if I really knew, myself, 
when to appropriately clap, except of course at the 
end. As I did not want to get left altogether, I 
watched that bald-headed old professor on the 
stage ; when he smiled that was my sure cue. 
Perhaps, after all, he may have been amused at 
errors.’’ 

After the distribution of the prizes, it was the 
custom of Madame to have her own chaplain, the 
High Church rector of her parish, bestow a few 
highly polished moral cautions to the flock of tal- 
ented and polite young ladies about to be let 
loose upon a very ignorant and very rough world. 
A slight cough had sent the priest suddenly to ex- 
periment with London fogs and England’s damp 
churches for a speedy cure. “What a rare oppor- 
tunity,” Madame thought, “the good doctor’s ab- 
sence gives me to compliment some rich papa in 


146 Where the Smile Conies In. 

the audience !” The first selection made by Ma- 
dame’s searching eye, surprised her very much by 
the prompt acceptance of her request, for it was 
meant purely as a compliment. It was the very 
gentleman who candidly con- 
fessed that the Latin vale- 
dictory was Greek to him. 

In passing his daughter, 
who was one of the gradu- 
ates, on his way to the plat- 
form, a close observer of the 
father’s face would have no- 
ticed a slight flutter of one 
eye-lid. The significance of 
the parental signal was fully 
understood. The young 
lady’s fine eyes instantly danced with merry 
light, a sure evidence that Madame’s severe de- 
portment rules had not done much damage to 
the natural feelings of at least one of her pupils. 

In his opening remarks the gallant old gentle- 
man, in his praise of Madame, quoted largely, one 



Where the Smile Comes In. 147 

might suspect, from Sir Roger de Coverley’s dis- 
course upon the perverse widow. The thin blood 
of the old court belle, in response to the flattering 
words, hung out a few blushing signals, and the 
absent chaplain was entirely forgotten ; but when 
the gentleman from the far West got to wording 
his own ideas as to the practical use Madame’s 
lovely pupils might put their costly education to, 
then it was that the dear old “ Minerva of her sex,” 
in defiance of her high degree in deportment, 
fidgeted with her gold-rimmed glasses and got up 
a pendulum movement of one foot, while her nose 
went on a regular spree with her vinaigrette bottle. 
Though this incarnation of deportment was ill at 
ease and displeased, not so were many of her pa- 
trons and even her politely trained pupils. Here 
are a few excerpts from the speech, gathered from 
the local press, that indicate what led to the diplo- 
mat’s widow’s discomfort. 

“ Would it not be a sad departure, my dear 
young ladies, from the aim of your carefully 
demonstrated ethics, for any one of you in the 


148 Where the Smile Conies In. 

future to persuade your indulgent and perhaps not 
over wealthy parent to recklessly subscribe to the 
bloated incomes of pleasure resort landlords or 
opulent ocean steamship proprietors, when you 
had knowledge that the local butcher and grocer 
were justly impatient over accounts that remain 
unliquidated? Is it not the duty of a young lady 
carrying home a prize given for mastering intricate 
problems to exorcise the evil that the inexor- 
able laws of mathematics create when slighted ? 
Agreeing that it is, then surely you will not try to 
divide, say, a hundred dollar allowance by more 
thirty dollar dresses than it will stand, and san- 
guinely expect to have something over sufficient 
for a new bonnet. 

“And, pardon me if I allude, in the presence of 
so much wealth and culture, to the absence, in the 
extensive curriculum of this classic Academy, of a 
very helpful domestic art. I refer to the confec- 
tion of the prosaic griddle-cake. 

“ The generous race, my dear daughters, from 
which you spring, appear to have deeded over to 


Where the Smile Comes In 149 

the ignorant female immigrant, and without seeming 
regret, the very foundations of their costly homes. 
The green Biddy is no doubt astonished at the 
liberal lease to everything below stairs. For does 
not the average lady of the house say : ‘ I will not 
trouble you with my advice, for, not knowing my- 
self anything about cooking, I have no wish, by 
experiments of my own, to risk the lives of my 
family.’ With . these words delivered, my lady 
rustles her gathered skirts up the kitchen stairs, 
leaving behind her in full possession a female who 
has to stumble somehow or anyhow into duties 
she is as ignorant of as her own mistress ; and 
when the dreadful day comes, — and in most Ameri- 
can homes it comes very often, — that brings with 
it a sudden vacancy in the cook’s department, what 
will certainly help to bridge over the trying period 
between the departure of the old cook and the 
arrival of the new, is the happy discovery to that 
distracted household, that one fair daughter has 
more than a theoretical knowledge as to how a 
light, spongy, well browned and digestible griddle 


1 50 Where the Smile Comes In. 

cake should be made. What proud swelling tones 
are those the pleased father uses when he says to 
the youth his daughter is much interested in : 1 Be 
proud as I am of her, my boy! This morning she 
rescued a starving family — (my wife had bounced 
the Biddy), — by feeding us with a personally con- 
ducted batch of buckwheats, and we are, as you 
see, alive to boast of it !’ 

“ I was deeply moved by your well-trained voices 
singing ‘ Sweet and Low,’ your class parting hymn. 
Don’t forget, my young friends, the great popu- 
larity, at times, of the soft pedal. When you 
bloom like rows of bright flowers in the theatre 
circle or grace an opera box, b^ generous enough 
to let the voice of actor or singer be the one the 
audience may hear most distinctly. 

“ It may be that some fair listener to my voice 
may possibly on some future day inherit a mon- 
strous fortune. Let that heiress reflect that her 
princely estate, yea, to its utmost cent, comes out 
of her country’s mines, its oil wells and its rail- 
roads. My sincere prayer for so rich a girl is, that 


Where the Smile Comes hi. 15 1 

her patriotism will be strong enough to resist the 
strong temptation to win a foreign title by mar- 
riage vows. A dissolute and impoverished duke, 
young, ladies, makes but a shabby show beside a 
good, honest, square, self-made young countryman 
of your own ! 

“ And I pray you, one and all, that you do not 
let an aesthetic bias for ‘ feeling/ ‘ culture ’ and 
‘ the graceful lines of Classic Art * lead you to find 
their mission in a ruthless home crusade. 

“The faded dressing gown of an aging father 
is not as fine as a bit of old world tapestry, nor is 
the mother’s Boston rocker constructed upon East- 
lake lines. Yet, war not, I implore you, against 
what Hood calls the ‘ flanneled ease of old age/ 
and reverently respect that ancient dressing-gown, 
its colors so bright in your childhood’s eyes ; 
revere it, L ask, as the uniform worn by the kind 
father on his midnight marches to the sad music 
of your fretful cry ; and venerate fervently that 
humble rocker at the fireside ; for its swaying 
lullaby closed your tender eyes to many a sweet 
dream in your mother’s restful arms. 


152 Where the Smile Comes In. 

“ And lastly, my fair daughters, you have been 
given prizes for being well versed in the grand 
thoughts and inspired sentiments of unexcelled 
classic writers. Can it be imagined, that a young 
lady, after drinking deep at these clear fountains, 
will find the least delight in the gossipy stream of 
tattle poured forth by a brainless society youth ? 

“ And pardon me, my dear young ladies, the bold 
liberty I have taken in airing before you my own 
crude ideas: and do not forget that they come 
from one whose only schoolhouse from earliest 
boyhood was the free, rough world of the early 
western pioneer. Pray take them as they were 
meant, as welling up from a heart overflowing 
with pride for his beloved country and its brave 
sons and fair daughters.” 

When this very unfashionable orator finished, it is 
best to say, the Ambassador’s widow was yet breath- 
ing. The speaker had two younger daughters, 
candidates for Madame’s polishing mill. There- 
fore the great authority in deportment refrained 
to express her true feelings as to the novel oration. 


Where the Smile Comes In. 153 

It is told of Madame that she actually shook the 
old gentleman’s hand, yea, both hands at once. 
As the pumping ceased, words were heard “ low 
and sweet “ What an exquisite treat you gave us. 
May we expect your two darling young daughters 
next term ? Again I thank you ; your words were 
so redolent of the freedom of your own broad 
prairies.” 

The leader of the orchestra, who performed for 
swell functions exclusively, beholding with astonish- 
ment Madame’s cordial endorsement of the words 
of the gentleman from the Far West, rapped his 
violin bow and did his best to add his own senti- 
ments by artistically smothering the original 
music of : 


“ For he was a jolly good fellow.” 


1 54 Where the Smile Comes In. 


COLONEL BEVERLY’S WILL. 

The gilding of young Dr. George Brittain’s sign 
was very bright, and the upholstery in his suite of 
rooms was not the least worn. The newness of 
every article of his surroundings advertised point- 
edly a fresh practitioner waiting for patients. 

Night was closing in. The young doctor lit up 
the gas in his front room, for the hour for receiv- 
ing patients had come. (He was forced by his 
limited means to keep down his gas-bill.) In the 
sudden brightness, the struggling physician was 
painfully reminded how unlike the equipment of 
an established practice his brand new furniture 
would seem to the longed-for patient. Second- 
hand furniture might have caused a different sug- 
gestion, but the new things about him had been 
bought upon the installment plan, requiring less 


Where the Smile Comes hi, 155 

ready cash than their alternates, quite a considera- 
tion in view of Brittain’s almost exhausted purse. 

Hope and the young doctor, however, had not 
yet parted, though the continuous blank face of the 
slate hanging beside his hall-door was aiding her 
to hint at the possibilities of an early breach in 
their acquaintance. 

The sanguine Brittain persisted in closing his 
eyes to the unpromising sign, but the struggle was 
a fierce one, and upon the day now ending as 
fruitless as its predecessors, he came very near 
desponding a bit. Happily, at the critical moment, 
his door-bell was most vigorously pulled. The 
small maid of his landlady, whose slim wages, to a 
cent, were tacked to the young physician’s board- 
bill, was as slow as she was diminutive. Again the 
bell sounded. Brittain’s patience was exhausted, 
and he answered this second ring in person. 

The caller would not enter, but made signs for 
the doctor to follow her at once. That she could 
not speak at the moment the door opened was on 
account of her little breath and much flesh. She 


156 Where the Smile Comes In . 

was an aged black women and many a day had 
passed since she made better time than upon this 
trip to summon a doctor. 

Upon their brisk trip to the house from which 



the old negress had come, as soon as the panting 
old lady could express herself coherently, the 
physician was informed that her master was very 
ill indeed. That the only other member of the 
family was the sick man’s niece. They had moved 
into a neighboring flat a few weeks previous, and 


Where the Smile Comes In. t 5 7 

the exertion of moving had finally caused her 
master, who had recently returned from England, 
in poor health, an utter collapse. His niece, Brit- 
tain was informed, had come on from her home in 
Virginia to keep house for her ailing uncle, whose 
business plans required his presence in the North. 
As a comment upon these details the old servant 
moaned : 

“ Poor marster Beverly ! I rec’on he do no 
more business now ’cept to git him soul ready for 
heabin. I see, a long time, he be gitten mo’ feeble 
like, an when I tell him so, he says ; he hab some 
right smart pain at times, wid his heart. Den he 
shake his fist an say, ‘ Now, Aunty, not a word ob 
dat to little Sally ; for Lord’s sake keep dat from 
her.’ Miss Sally am his ’dopted niece, doctor. 
Shucks ! wat de use ob de ole Cun’l bein’ so sly 
about dat ole heart ob his. She know dat long 
ago ; yes, when he start for Europe for his health, 
as he say. an’ dat Europe health business, Mister 
Doctor, jes another blind of de cute ole Cun’l’s. He 
go dare to sell his gold-mine, and he no do it, 


1 58 Where the Smile Comes In. 

either. O Lord ! doctor dear, now I’s sartin sure 
ole marster nebber be peart again, I am all a 
tremble like, for little Misstess ; for dare ain’t much 
left in de old gentleman’s money-chist ; dat’s sure, 
an’ de house down in Firginia got two mortgages 
on it.” 

All hopes of a generous fee vanished with this 
confession of the old black woman, but the un- 
promising outlook made not the slightest check 
upon Brittain’s rapid steps, and he did his best to 
say comforting words to the moaning family-ser- 
vant. But she shook her head and answered, 
“ Yes, good doctor, you mean well, an’ I thank 
you ; but you know what it am for ’spectable folks 
to be poor.” 

“Ah ! indeed I do, good aunty.” 

“ No, sir, a stout young man like you don’ know 
what all dat means to a child fetched up like young 
Mistess so tenderly dat ebbery cold wind was kep’ 
from her; an’ as a young lady jes petted to death, 
an’ I as well as all de others, jes as much to blame 
for dat. Yet, hear me, good doctor, dare’s a heap 


Where the Smile Comes In. 159 

of work in dese ole black han’s ob mine, and till 
dey drap stiff at my side, Miss Sally shall nebber, 
nebber go to to de poo’ house.” 

Growing more confidential still the old lady 
added : “ It was jes las’ week I ups an’ tell de ole 
Cun’l dat he mus’ not put off, a day longer, de putten’ 
of sumpen’ aside for jes sich a day as dis, an’ all 
de consolation I gits was to see him wave his long 
arm, as if dat would sweep all trouble away — an’ 
hear him say, in his gran’ wav: ‘Don’t you uns 
worry ober dat empty money-chest, an’ sing to me 
’bout rainy days comen’ ! I tell you, aunty, to hab 
patience ; patience, an’ all we Beverlys will be de 
Wanderbilts ob ole Firginia.’ 

“ Shucks ! doctor, I take no stock in sich talk. 
I hear dat same story, time an’ ’gin, from his ole 
father de Gen’ral. Jes cause de ole Gen’ral, one 
day see some ting shinen’ in de bottom ob dare 
brook, he declair it gol’. All de Gen’ral’s fine Ian’s 
jes honey-corned with gold hunten’. Some gold 
dare sure, doctor, but my ole Jack say, it cost more 
dan it’s worth to dig. De ole Gen’ral died wid 


i6o 


Where the Smile Comes In, 


gol’ mines on de brain : his son, de Cun’l, am now 
’fected same way. I am sartin sure, doctor, dat 
if de Beverlys only ax ob dare fine Ian’s wheat in- 
stead of always gol’ ! gol’ ! den to-day Miss Sally 
hab all de gol’ she want. Here we lib, doctor, you 
had bes’ stay in dat little ’ception-room dare while 
I fetch young Misstess to tell you all dat trouble 
ob de ol’ Cun’l.” 

In the slight picture of Miss Beverly that Brit- 
tain had cast up in his imagination from the gossip 
of the old black woman, he had sketched her as a 
delicate slip of a girl. It started him to behold a 
rather tall young lady, who, in spite of her uncle’s 
fatal sickness, was perfectly calm. Her voice was 
soft and musical, every word betraying her South- 
ern birth. He cast one lingering glance at her 
melting-brown eyes, and from that night their 
bewitchery never left him. 

The moment Dr. Brittain was left with his pa- 
tient he became convinced that the old Colonel’s 
days were indeed numbered. 

After applying some momentary relief, with sue* 


Where the Smile Comes In. 161 

cess, the grateful patient gazed some time upon the 
young doctor’s face. The faint smile the sick man 
finally gave showed that his hasty examination 
was partially satisfactory. His next action was to 
grope for the physician’s hand. As he released it, 
a slight wave of disappointment passed over his 
wan face. 

“ I’m deuced sorry, young man,” he said labor- 
iously, “that you are not a Free Mason. But let 
that go, for from what I can read of your real 
character by your face, you are very near the kind 
of man I want to talk to badly just now. Yes, 
Doc., I need you for a little business much more 
perhaps than your physic. Hand me, please, that 
lap-desk on the table yonder. 

“ Thanks, now brace me up, Doc., the best you 
know how, that I may hold out long enough to 
make a short will. My niece was never legally 
adopted by me, and I wish to keep from my num- 
erous impoverished heirs, for her sake, the few dol- 
lars I can yet command. If the bracer, dear Doc., 
gould be a julep put together by old Aunty herself, 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


1 62 

I’ll die the happier! A true Virginia gentleman, 
Doc., loves his fragrant mint full as much as an 
Irishman his green shamrock.” 

The dying Southerner’s request was consented 
to by the doctor. 

Brittain, though young in years, has stood by 
many deathbeds, but this one promised to be 
unique from the few humorous wishes of the old 
prodigal. 

“ The last time I made a will, Doc., was long be- 
fore the war. General Jimmie Farquhar an’ I 
were to exchange shots in the morning of the next 
day. He blackballed me, the old sinner, at an 
Easter vestry-meeting, and only his blood could 
wipe out that deadly insult. I winged him, Doc., 
just where, when in uniform, his epaulet rested on 
his right shoulder. Gen’l Jim never dealt cards 
after that shot. I was deuced cut up about it, my- 
self, for he was a good poker partner, and I missed 
his company sadly, for he lived within yelling dis- 
tance, and loved the game.” 

The young doctor gently reminded his patien^ 


W/iere the Smile Comes In. 163 

not to ramble from the business before him, which 
must be, he insisted, as brief as possible. 

When the old Colonel had signed the hastily 
drawn document he had dictated, and the witnesses 
— the flat janitor and his wife— had retired, the old 
Virginian gazed upon his signature for some mo- 
ments, as if doubting his own handwriting. 

% “ It is terrible shaky, Doc., no mistake about that, 
but it’s the best I could do.” And for a moment 
up to his face went his long, thin fingers. 

“ Oh ! my dear little Sally ! what a miserable 
pile of stamps that shaky name now passes on to 
you. Great Scott ! Doc., but it’s mighty hard to 
believe now that befo’ the war, that same sig. of 
Dabney Polk Beverly was good at my Richmond 
bank for tens of thousands.” The old gentleman 
rolled out the sum with a voice and gesture that 
seemed to turn it into millions. 

The very thought of the old flush-times of Lis 
hot youth and his present cheerless poverty sent a 
cold shudder through the old spendthrift’s spare 
frame. His eye-glass fell upon the attested will and 


164 Where the Smile Comes In. 

his poor old gray head fell wearily back to his 
pillow. 

Again did he implore, by signs alone, for another 
whiff of the fragrant herb, and it was placed by 
the doctor, close to his pin lied nostrils, and with 
its loved perfume back again came the last flame 
of his very life’s light. 

“ Hurry Sally in, Doc., and tell her to bring with 
her my old mother’s prayer-book. The one with 
the Beverly Arms on the cover, and tell my faith- 
ful old mammy to come with her and rub my cold 
feet as she did my father’s. Keep near the outside 
of the door, Doc. It may be too severe a trial for 
poor, poor little Sally.” 

Called to the temporary home of the Beverly’s 
as a physician and leaving the house as a sole ex- 
ecutor of the old Colonel’s handsome niece, — 
strangers to him a few hours previous — caused a 
situation very startling indeed to young Brittain. 
But he had passed his word to the dying man, and 
so it must stand. The Colonel’s little legacy hap- 
pily fell, by chance, into honest hands that event- 
ful night. 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


165 

The best of Miss Beverly’s fortune was a life 
insurance policy. “ When I took it out,” the old 
uncle had told Brittain, “ I almost considered it a 
cold-blooded Yankee scheme of chance, and, Doc., 
it was the very deuce with me at times to raise the 
annual premiums. But to-night, I view that docu- 
ment in quite a different light.” 

It distressed the young doctor not a little to find 
many of the last premiums met by the Colonel’s 
notes. A month’s rent, a few tradesmen’s bills, the 
old black woman’s unpaid wages for a whole year, 
and the funeral expenses, left but a few hundreds 
in cash in the doctor’s safe. Out of this Miss 
Beverly insisted upon Doctor Brittain taking a lib- 
eral fee for medical attendance ; thus Miss Sally’s 
little legacy was soon exhausted. But that reluc- 
tantly taken fee proved very soon to be something 
of a golden nest-egg. To the gossipy neighbor- 
hood the story of so young a man being made sole 
executor of so charming a young lady, had a spice 
of romance to it, and it spread from house to house, 
Miss Beverly’s fortune, as in like cases, increasing 


1 66 


Where the Smile Comes In. 


at every recital. To get accurate information the 
young physician was sent for to minister to many 
sham sicknesses, and Doctor Brittain’s name was 
advertised at many a five o’clock tea. When a 
bicycle accident occurred in the locality, the victim 
was hurried to the young doctor’s office. The 
night-bell had to have a new wire and the doctor’s 
office furniture was taking on slowly the worn look 
of much business. 

At the end of a month, a day was appointed 
when Miss Sally and her faithful servant would 
visit the doctor, and then say good-bye, as it was 
the intention of the doctor’s ward to leave for Vir- 
ginia, and rejoin her two elderly aunts living there 
upon the old Beverly plantation. When at the ap- 
pointed hour Miss Sally and the faithful Aunty 
appeared in Brittain’s reception-room, the young 
physician noticed that the old black woman was in 
tears and laboring under suppressed excitement. 
Almost the first words spoken came from the faith- 
ful servant. 

“ Oh, good Doctor, I ’s got to go back to Fir- 


Where the Smile Comes In, 167 

ginia and leab little Misstess behind.” The sur- 
prised Brittain quickly turned his head to Miss 
Sally : 

“ Yes, Doctor, I have decided to stay at the pros- 
perous North. Though I know, well, that every- 
one of my dear kinsmen would unbegrudgingly 
share their last bit of corn-bread with me, yet I 
have now determined to spare them the least sac- 
rifice from their shrunken fortunes. If I can’t get 
a place as saleswoman in some department store, 
perhaps I may find something to do at that big 
thread-factory across the river, the tall chimney of 
which, the front windows of our flat command. 
Every day there passes our house a long procession 
of young women employed there.” 

“ Oh ! not at dat big fact’ry, chile,” implored the 
old servant. “ Don’t I tell you on de way here dat 
I don’ like to go home to de Beverlys of Firginia 
an’ tell dem dat one of dare young lady kin am 
worken wid her sof’ white hands in a spool-cotton 
fact’ry.” Turning her tearful eyes to the young 
doctor, she said “ She be done set on gitten’ work 


1 68 Where the Smite Comes In . 

here at de rich Norf, dough I tell her dat my ole 
Jack an’ me work our han’s off to make de ole 
Cun’l’s few acres support our dear Honey. So, 
good Doctor, fin’ for her something more easy for a 
Lady Beverly. All the Beverlys were monstrous 
high-toned befo’ de war.” 

Beholding a cheerful smile making its way over 
Brittain’s handsome face, the old black held up a 
threatening finger to her young Mistress, saying : 
“ Don’ make no rash promises with yourself, me- 
lady, ’till de good doctor hab a small say ! ’Mem- 
ber, Miss Sally, de ole Cun’l make him your legal 
’cutioner, and de law gibs him de right as your gar- 
deen to tell you what am de best to do. An’ also 
’member, Miss Beverly, de war am long ober and 
de Yankee kort got to be ’spected now by Firgin- 
ians as well as North’ers.” 

Then, as if having some home court proceeding 
in her mixed remembrance, the old black lady 
closed her fervent appeal, by dropping a courtesy 
before Miss Beverly’s young guardian, saying sol- 
emnly to him ; “ We uns am waiting for de Court's 
say, Your Honor ?” 


Where the Smile Comes In, 169 

Neither the doctor nor his ward could resist the 
humorous turn this stately appeal of the old black 
lady gave at once to the scene. Brittain’s answer 
to the old family servant in the character imposed 
upon him, was to take from his table a picture of a 
recent graduating class of trained nurses. The in- 
telligent faces and the dainty costumes of the 
young women in the group pleased the old aunty 
very much. And Miss Beverly, herself, in fear and 
trembling asked : 

“ Is there a possible chance, Doctor Brittain, 
that I could become without much expense one of 
their number? The last years of the war, my dear 
mother, now in Heaven, spent at the Richmond 
hospitals, caring for the sick and wounded of both 
armies. More than one Northern officer showed 
his gratitude to her by substantial gifts at Christ- 
mas. She was truly thankful for their kind remem- 
brances, for the war had made her a widow, and 
very poor in everything but love of kin, and devo- 
tions of two old family-servants, my dear old Aunty 
here and her husband, faithful Uncle Jack.” 


I 70 IV here the Smile Comes In. 

So upon the doctor’s advice Miss Sally took up 
the profession of trained nurse. Her quick intel- 
ligence, with many aiding hints from Brittain, 
who was now upon the hospital staff, found for her 
a shorter cut to a diploma than was the usual ex- 
perience of novices. 

The young Virginian girl’s gentle ways and sweet 
temper made her very successful with child pa- 
tients. Among the many demands for her services, 
there came one day one from a rich gentleman liv- 
ing some little distance from the city. Her attend- 
ance in this house was a protracted one. One 
evening a- letter in her well-known handwriting, ad- 
dressed to Brittain, was delivered by special delivery 
to that still young but rising doctor. Supposing 
the communication a professional one, like others 
from the same writer, asking some special advice, 
Brittain delayed reading it until his hours for visi- 
tors were over. When finally he was at leisure to 
give the trained nurse the advice she probably de- 
sired, the poor doctor found his task a heart-break- 
ing one, indeed. The trouble was just this : Brit- 


Where the Smile Comes In. i 7 1 

tain at heart loved Sally Beverly, but had procras- 
tinated his confession a day too long. That very 
night the trained nurse had thrown up her engage- 
ment and was back to her city address, excited 
over an offer of marriage from the rich father of 
two motherless children, whose final recovery from 
the dreadful typhus the family doctor persistently 
asserted “ was all due to that most self-sacrificing 
trained nurse young Doctor Brittain had recom- 
mended.” 

Once more was the poor Virginia exile appealing 
to her guardian, and the question he must answer 
promptly was this : 

“ In making you my confessor, faithful guardian, 
I am sure it is just what the poor Colonel meant 
when he asked of you, with his dying breath, ‘ To 
advise my dear niece with good counsel, and Heaven 
will reward you, surely, surely,’ and I sincerely 
hope I am not by so doing in this case acting dis- 
courteously toward the kind gentleman who has so 
honored poor Sally Beverly. If I have done him 


i 72 Where the Smile Comes In. 

wrong, I know that you will guard our secret as 
sacredly as a priest in a confessional. Indeed, my 
dear guardian, if my answer is to be “ Yes," it will 
be because you willingly approve of such an an- 
swer. Why I am perplexed at all is that the very 
service you led me to employ myself in, puts me, I 
find, outside of the social barrier in which this kind 
gentleman and his much-loved but aristocratic 
sister move. To a man who loves me, my present 
occupation will soon be forgotten ; but to the 
proud woman who has treated me more as a guest 
than a hired assistant, can she so readily overlook 
a sister-in-law’s early experiences ? Then the great- 
est tempter of all is the present situation of my 
dear old aunts, at the South. The letters from 
home, which I found waiting me, tell me how 
bravely they are fighting poverty off with the aid 
of old black mammy’s now aging arms. All I can 
spare goes to them, but in accepting this gentle- 
man’s offer, I might put them, for the rest of their 
few years, in comparative comfort. But the depth 
of his sister’s pride, I, as a woman, know too well, 


Where the Smile Conies I?z . 1 73 

Many of your social exactments here at the rich, 
cold North are so different from my dear old 
State’s way. A lady of the house of Beverly can 
wear homespun garments to a grand dinner, and 
any honorable employment she may be forced to 
take up does not part her from old friends in her 
social circle. 

“ You see now, dear guardian, that in my heart- 
wearing perplexity how anxious I am for the manly 
counsel of one like you, whom I know to be so 
capable of giving it. Yes, dear friend, far from 
home and kin, Sally Beverly can only turn to you 
for aid in her friendless situation. If you care not 
to come and talk with me over the course I should 
pursue, please write promptly. 

“ Yours most sincerely, 

“ Sally Beverly.” 

Much fine note-paper did poor unselfish Doctor 
George waste in the painful operation of forming a 
letter, every word in favor of Miss Beverly’s new 
adorer. Finally he decided to be heroic enough to 
tell her so in her presence, 


1 74 Where the Smile Comes In. 

Young Brittain, as a surgeon, was never known 
to blanch over the most tortuous surgical opera- 
tion imposed upon him, yet when his lovely ward 
most joyfully welcomed him at the threshold of her 
humble lodgings, the young doctor’s face became 
as a death-mask. The happy Miss Sally’s beaming 
eyes lost none of their shining joy, as she laugh- 
ingly said, in her soft bewitching Southern tones : 

“You are too late — too late, Doctor Brittain, I 
could hold back my answer no longer, the tension 
was too great. He has it now; are you not going 
to congratulate me ?” 

Upon the fair white hand she was holding out, 
dropped a hot blistering tear, for the poor young 
doctor was doing his utmost to frame his best 
wishes, when there fell from her lips these soothing 
words, spoken sweet and low : 

“ Pardon me, dear friend, you have mistaken my 
meaning. I wanted to be congratulated for not 
listening to my tempter. Sally Beverly has now 
more chances of becoming a second Clara Barton 
than a rich man’s second wife.” 


Where the Smile Comes In. 175 

A few days later a prominent city doctor burst 
unceremoniously into young Doctor Brittain’s inner 
office. “ Hello ! Doc.,” he roared, “ where is that 
dashed fine nurse, Miss Beverly, to be found? A 
whole houseful of kids, red with scarlet fever, and 
their distracted parents are clamoring in chorus 
for the famed Miss Sally. Tell me quickly, Doc., is 
she to be had for love or money ? Dash it, man ! 
this family is among my best paying patients and 
I am quite ready in their interest to kidnap this 
princess of child nurses wherever she’s engaged 
now. Where the dash is an interview with her to 
be had ? You must know, Doc., for the boys at the 
Hospital say she is only working for you of late. 
Ha! dashed if the young rascal hasn’t got Miss 
Sally’s picture close beside his book. Dash me, 
Doc., if I even noticed before how dashed hand- 
some she is. Hospital costumes make these girls 
look not unlike a dashed lovely stage soubrette? 
Whew ! down South getting ready for her wedding ? 
Look here, youngster, you don’t mean to tell me 
that you intend to marry when you are only driy- 


176 Where the Smile Comes In . 

ing a one-horse carriage ? But you won’t have long 
to wait, I am told, before your business will allow 
a team. Doc., my youngster, you are a dashed 
lucky dog. Don’t forget me and the Missis when 
you let loose the wedding invites.” 


3 


THE END. 


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™ SMILE 
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